Ditching Greek | editing

42| First Impressions

Clyde took my hand, tugged me forward over the threshold. I waved a brief goodbye toward his cousin. Felix nodded in my direction simply and sat down on the steps with his head between slumped, sad shoulders.

"I think you were too tough on him," I whispered to Clyde.

"Hardly," he huffed. "If anything, I was nicer than I would've been if you weren't there—I didn't want to embarrass him in front of a stranger."

"He's just a kid, Clyde." We walked into the large foyer. A spiraling black staircase took up a lot of the space, made completely of metal and wood. There was a sweet aroma in the air, like someone had lit one of those seasonal candles all around the house. "Give him a break."

"No, that's not a good enough excuse. He knows the rules. You can't just do things like that and not expect any consequences. What if someone in the neighborhood saw him? They already think the Remington's are freaks."

"I bet you did the same kind of stuff when you were his age."

He paused. "Well...there's not much to do in this part of town."

I shook my head. "You're a hypocrite, you know that?"

"I'm not a hypocrite."

A girl with long, beautiful dark curls came down the steps, caring a book in hand. Her eyes were so focused on the word on the page that she didn't pay much attention to anything else around her. "Clyde, you've been home for less than one minutes and I already hear you lying." She finally looked up from the book and looked at us both. "Oh, you brought a girl? Now I know why you're lying." She walked up to me. "Hello. I'm Lynn." She went to go reach out for my hand, but I flinched away from her. "What did you tell her about me?" she snapped at him. "Off spreading lies, I'm presuming."

"Oh, hush, Lynn. I didn't tell her anything that wasn't true."

She cocked a brow. "Knowing you, I'm certain that you made up some awful lie." She faced me. "What did he tell you? That I was evil? Wicked?"

"Uh..." I stumbled for words.

"You don't have to answer her, Nabella."

"He said you like making curses and stuff..." I confessed.

"Oh." She tense shoulders relaxed. "Well that's true."

I inched away from her. "It is?"

"Very much so. Curses, voodoo, all kinds of fun junk like that."

"Fun?" I coughed. "You think that stuff is fun?" This girl had a sick definition of fun. I thought going to a party, reading a good book, or hanging out with my friends was fun and a nice way to spend my day. But cursing things didn't seem like something I'd ever consider as fun in my world.

"It's so much fun." Her eyes lit up—I swear. She spoke gleefully of this 'curse' business that it nearly frightened me worse than how Felix had scared me. Maybe it was a bad idea to come to Canada after all. "You should try it out. I'll show you a few simple ones if you want—"

"No thank you," I said quickly. "I think I'll be fine."

Lynn shrugged. "Suit yourself." She held her book close to her chest, skipping off out of the foyer and toward the living room. She stopped at the mouth of the room and looked at my over her shoulder. "I'm actually proud of you Clyde. You didn't lie—for once."

I squeezed his hand, unsure on what she meant. "Why does she think you're such a liar?"

"Because he is!" she roared. I let go of Clyde's hand and followed after her. She moved into the kitchen that was connected to the living room. She hopped on top of the kitchen island and folded her legs, propping the book up to read it. "When we were growing up, he would do really shitty pranks. Has he done any of those over there?"