Roll the Dice

eleven. adelaide's lament

[Dedicated to Aria, one of my best writing buddies. Ever since the first Camp NaNoWriMo, I can't ask for a better friend for advice and support. Thank you, boo!]

Carter cleared his throat from above my head as I slouched over the kitchen table, trying my best to concentrate enough to read my summer reading book. I turned my head, not bothering to lift it up, raising my eyebrows although I really just wanted to fall asleep. "What?"

"Please tell me why your two best friends are here," he hissed in my ear, eyes wide with something like trepidation. (He actually felt anxiety over something other than exams...which I supposed was rather normal for a person like Carter.) "They're freaking the fuck out of me."

I blinked slowly. "Why?"

Carter straightened abruptly and began to pace around the kitchen table, almost reminding of our dad whenever he stumbled upon a particularly perplexing case during his medical practice. "But you have to save me from them. They're like" – he waved his hands desperately – "a pair of rabid bunnies!" He bent over on the table again, slamming his hands right next to my nose. "Please, Lottie."

It was so fun to watch him in such a state of dismay, even though it was way too early for my brain to be functioning. It was fucking ten in the morning, for goodness' sake, and I already found it incredibly difficult to blink.

I yawned once again, and my jaw cracked.

Immediately, I flopped my arm over on the table and massaged my chin, feeling it crack again when I pushed it back into its normal position.

"Lottie," Carter whined, now shaking my shoulder rather vigorously, if I had to say so. God, if he shook it a couple more times, it would crack mightily. I held my breath for a second, and then – crack. There it was. Carter recoiled right then, but he still somehow had the audacity to tap the top of my head. "Seriously."

When I pushed myself up from the table with a groan, sending my chair clattering behind me, I plodded my way over to the refrigerator to grab a yogurt container. I turned around, raising my eyebrows as I met my brother, who was basically on his knees at this point. "What?"

"Please don't make me beg." Carter tilted his head to the side with a scrunched nose. I put my hand on my hip. If this wasn't begging, then I wasn't quite sure what he'd been trying to do all this time. He continued, "Okay, I'll even stop making snarky comments whenever you ramble on about that Frank Sinatra musical." He widened his eyes. "Seriously. I'll even admit that I like the Adelaide character."

"So basically" – I reached across the countertop to get myself a spoon – "you're willing to do anything."

He nodded forcefully. "Anything."

So a couple seconds later, I found myself trudging down the main hall of my house with a yogurt container and spoon in hand as I listened to Carter dump all of his life's troubles on me – most of them concerning my apparently "psycho" best friends.

Carter stopped me right next to the one painting we had in the house (of a very fascinating bowl of fruit that must have taken forever to set up since it was rather elaborate) by clamping his hands down on my shoulder. I gingerly turned my head to inspect his hands – if he pushed down any harder, the other shoulder was going to crack.

Crack.

There it was. I shrugged his hands off, putting a spoonful of my yogurt into my mouth. "Spit it out," I blubbered thickly through my mouthful of yogurt.

He sent me a derisive look, probably because some of my yogurt must have made its way on his college t-shirt, before he began talking. "It's Dacey," he hissed. He crossed his arms over his chest. "That girl terrifies me, and you know it."