A Silver Lining

Chapter Fifteen: Rights & Respects

Chapter 15: Rights and Respects

"Eureka! I've done it!" I fist-pumped as I was making my way to the kitchen. It was Friday, the last day of school before the holidays.

But that has nothing to do with me running around the house and going to the kitchen for food at two-thirty in the morning. You see, I made this bet with Caleb that I will be able to finish all my homework for the vacation in one night.

Well it was stupid but it was us. Or specifically him. But I wasn't ready to lose or give him the opportunity to make the rest of my life hell. It was something around two in the morning when I was finished and texted Caleb. When I didn't get a quick reply and my stomach started to call in pain, I realized I missed dinner.

"Can you be louder?" Someone hissed when I stepped inside the kitchen. I opened my eyes and found Len on the kitchen counter. I wasn't exactly expecting him to be home tonight, but he seemed a bit drunk. So I guess my presumption wasn't entirely wrong.

"Hungover?" I asked him before grabbing some pasta from the refrigerator and set it in the oven to warm up. I was also kind enough to hand my brother some aspirins and water.

"You can say," he paused. "What're you doing this late? Went somewhere?"

Then I explained to my brother about my bet. By that time Caleb replied to my text with lots of swearing emojis and how I'll be the end of him.

The whole time when I explained it to Len, he looked at me as if I finally had lost my mind and shook his head in pity when I was done.

"You sure know what kind of friends to make," he mused.

"Likewise," I deadpanned.

He looked up as the oven beeped and I put the pasta in a bowl for myself.

"You know your girlfriend shouldn't have done what she has done," I told him.

There was silence for a moment.

"Don't take Isabelle seriously. She meant no harm," he shrugged.

I gave him a pointed look. "So bullying the life out of a girl, draining her with soda, covering her lockup with ketchup and then calling her slut in front the whole world doesn't count in harm?"

After that encounter on Tuesday, I did a little bit of research on that girl. More like my chem partner volunteered to fill with the gossip.

She's the gossip queen and knows every single gossip of our school She said she heard what I did with their cheer-captain (the raven who later turned out to be our school's very own Queen B, Isabelle Dawson) and decided to fill me up with every single gossip about that girl, Claire Daniel.

Apparently, Isabelle is under the impression that Claire has a crush on my brother dearest Len, who also happened to be her so-called boyfriend. Though the gossipers of our school think it was other way around, which means it was Len who was chasing after Claire. We couldn't blame Claire for that, she's just too nice of a person.

Some other source thinks Claire doesn't even go for that league. You know what I meant. She enrolled here last spring semester, so no one knew much about her past, other than she was from Orlando. They think she might either be a tomboy or gay, or lesbian, whichever term you prefer.

But she can do what she wants for all I care. I have nothing to do with LGBT, really never bother myself to care about others opinions on matters, I already had enough on my plate.

So anyway, this bullying started around the beginning of the current semester. And my brother did nothing about it.

I didn't speak for a long time and dug in my pasta.