Basically, I Hate You

ONE

"Lux, come on! We're gonna be late! Do you want to miss your last first day of high school?" Jace, my older brother, shouted from the bottom of the stairs in our large family home.

"I'm coming, Jace! God!"

We weren't even running late. If I had to guess, he wanted me out of the way so that he and his twin, Jaxon, could use our family home as their personal brothel. I'd sadly run into more naked women in my house since they turned eighteen than Hugh Hefner did in the Playboy mansion.

I finished lacing my worn-down black combat boots and looked at myself in the mirror. Still pale as paper. My long-sleeve black shirt and green skinny cargos were as good as it was ever going to get for me. Especially given my egregious lack of curves. Grabbing my backpack I swung it over my shoulder and pulled my bedroom door closed as I clunked down the stairs.

"Honey! What do you want for breakfast?" My mother yelled from the kitchen.

"No time, mom! Lux, is gonna be late if we don't leave right now." Jace grabbed my elbow and ushered me quickly towards the door.

"Hey! Bring my daughter here now. I need to feed my baby before her first day of senior year!"

Laughing at Jace's crestfallen expression I turned around and marched into the kitchen.

"Hi, mama." She was cutting up strawberries, the perfect picture of domestication. I went over and gave her a warm hug.

"Hi, honey. Why are all my children so tall?" She kissed me on the cheek, almost needing to be on her tiptoes. Jace rummaged through the fridge with one hand and chugged orange juice from the container with the other.

"Jace Alder Atwood, I know you aren't drinking my orange juice from the carton!" She admonished without turning around.

"W-what? No, I would never! You raised me better!" Jace sputtered, choking on the juice he'd yet to swallow.

"Come sit at the counter and stop behaving like an animal!" As she snatched the container from him I chuckled and snuck a blueberry from the fruit spread on the island.

"Gosh, no one feeds me in this house." He muttered as he trudged to the barstool at the counter.

"Oh, really?! Tell that to my $500 grocery bill last week!" My mother quipped, placing my favorite breakfast in front of me. Waffles topped with fruit, syrup, and whipped cream, with a side of bacon and eggs.

"What can I say? I'm a growing boy." Jace grinned, fluttering his eyelashes emphatically.

"The only thing still growing is your ego."

"Shut up!" He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and brought me head first into his chest ruffling my hair.

"JAAAAACE!" I screamed, trying to force him off.

My mother sighed, chuckling as she told him to let me go. I fixed my naturally bone-straight hair and asked where everyone else was.

"Well your brother never came home last night, and your father went in early." She said without explicitly saying Jaxon's name. It was unnecessary since it was widely known that the twins were man-whores. "Wren's probably out back in the shed. You know him."

"Okay, I'll take him a plate." Grabbing the food I headed out the french doors into the backyard. Wren and my father had built a shed about ten years earlier and he often hung out there after he converted it into a 'man cave'.

"I'm leaving in ten with or without you, Lux!" Jace yelled through a mouthful of bacon.

Music played lightly, the notes slow and sad. To me, Wren was easy to understand. Music meant painting, and painting meant sad. He was just too pure for our world, it was hard to see him down so often.