Bates & Landon [Wattys2015]

BATES

Bates

"Dude," Jonas, putting his arm on my shoulder, begins, "Sierra is having this amazing party. We gotta go, she has a nice house too."

"Why would we go?"

"To be bored," he says with a straight face, "No! To party, obviously!"

"I don't know about it." I say. Who would watch my sister??

"Why the heck not?"

"Um --"

"Hello, what are we talking about?" Jessie walks up to us. We were at my locker currently.

"Sierra's party," Jason says, "we need to convince Bates to go."

"Yeah, even if you don't want to interact with anyone, they wouldn't. Everyone ignores us." Jessie said to me with a shrug. I didn't see why they did ignore them -- besides the fact that they lashed out almost every time someone came to them -- they were actually pretty cool guys.

"Yeah, but I have to baby sit my sister." I inform them. "No way I could go."

"What about your parents?"

"They can't." I say stiffly, not wanting to talk about that.

They catch on I don't want to explain that part. "Okay," Jason claps his hands together. "We will talk about this later, alright?"

"Affirmative," with a solute from Jessie, Jason walks away. I see Barbie, Landon's best friend, walking down the hall, straight faced, and then she sees me.

"Bates?" She walks up to me. She glanced briefly at Jessie then back to me.

"Uh, yeah?" I had no idea why she would be talking to me.

"How have you been?" She narrows her eyes slightly, looking closely at me. Can she see I'm not entirely happy?

"Good." She makes her eyes to their regular size. How could she even understand -- anything about me. She probably has a perfect life.

"So," she looks back to Jessie, eyes lingering on him for a few more seconds necessary, "I was wondering if you two are coming to the party. Sierra's."

Jessie grins. "Oh, we need to convince Bates. He needs to find a baby sitter. Yet, he doesn't have one."

"Oh, I can get that covered." She says way too quickly.

"Really? Who?" Jessie asks, looking surprised.

"Hilary Jones, that's who." She answers. "She is amazing at watching kids -- or singular, kid -- and she watched my cousin, Lillie once."

"I don't know about it." I look at Barbie, seeing how she smiled at me. "I can't just trust her with some -- some girl I don't even know to watch my sister."

"Well," she glances at Jessie, "how about you just go to the party a little late and let you sister fall asleep before you leave."

"I'll come up with an answer by Thursday." I tell her. She nods her head as if she's satisfied. "Is, um...Is Landon going?"

A smile forms on Barbie's lips. "Yes, she is actually. Why do you ask?" I manage a shrug. Where was she anyways? As if on cue (and highly cliché), Landon comes walking down the hall. She looks up from the ground and makes eye contact with me. She looks confused, probably wondering why her best friend was talking to us.

"Hey?" Landon says to us. The wind was chillier today, so Landon was wearing a loose white button up long sleeve and it had gold buttons (it wasn't plaid) and a black skirt that's mid knee length.