Stereotype

Chapter 10 : Rodent Central

RODENT CENTRAL

J A C E   E V E R S 

Junior Year

SCARLETT came back wearing a ridiculous outfit. Completely drenched in exhaustion  from studying, Jace swept his eyes over the kitchen area for a sentence to help start a conversation about his twins choice of style. 

"Good date?" He begun, instantly regretting it when she barely glanced at him. He waited three seconds thinking on whether to re-ask when she responded nodding her head in an uncertain 'yes'. Jace laughed at her obviously bad date returning back to his textbook.

"Whats so funny?" 

"Nothing." He said smiling when a sound of a chair scraped. 

"No no tell me." 

"Well," He said placing his pen down "You clearly hated your date." Scarlett got up suddenly, she made her way out the room and Jace sighed to himself. A moment later, Scarlett returned placing her purse on the table. Cautiously Jace opened it to find no money. He raised a confused eyebrow and she urged him to check again. 

"All my money is gone because I had to pay for an expensive meal, honestly I dont even know why I was invited." He listened to her words feeling pity for what went down with her crush. "Above it all; I still like him and I broke Jens rule of not paying."

A mixture of confusion and hate for Parker swirled in his mind. Jace faced Scarlett for the first time in months to which she actually payed attention to him "Parker's a rodent. Never let a rodent tell you how to run your streets when theirs are dirty." 

He felt that line spoke more about her relationships with numerous people as she immediately left after that. Jace once again sighed at their lack of communication, he groaned at the time and packed his things away to head to bed. Whistling all the way upstairs, he entered his bedroom dialling his favourite contact.

When Nova didn't answer, he called Candace.

Although they had chatted over text they had never actually spoke on the phone and in real life it was when she was drunk out of her mind. Jace debated hanging up as he nervously ruffled his short hair. "Hey...hi...sup..." He tested out each word carefully to see which one would best suit their first ever call. 

"Hello?"  

Chocolate mousse described her voice. Absolute music to his ears. 

"Anyone there?"

God she sounded good annoyed.

"Jace?"

His name on her tongue... "Oh yeah its me... Jace... Evers... Evers Jace from text." He fell onto his bed instantly regretting everything in his life. She would think he was a complete loser. Jace shot up faster than a lightening bolt when the sound of a light laugh came through the phone. All awkwardness from the beginning faded instantly as they spoke about everything and anything. From favourite foods to Van Gogh.

"He cut his ear."

"Its romantic?"

"Its creepy."

"Yeah it is creepy actually." Jace had a massive smile engraved onto his face throughout their entire conversation. He had been kicking a pair of rolled-up socks around checking his eye colour in a mirror when the topic changed to people with different coloured eyes.

"One blue, one green eye." She confirmed.

"Cat right?"

"Cat."

 Jace listened to her shy act slip away during their call and felt happy knowing that Candace felt some comfort in their talk and was just about to topic change when a sound of muffled voices talking from downstairs made him reluctantly end the call. It was three am after all so it was for the best he let her sleep too.

Pressing that red hang-up button reminded Jace that escape was temporary. He rubbed his tired eyes awake and headed downstairs to where the muffled voices became more clearer. Daena flung herself onto Jace as soon as he stepped down from the last step. 

He caught her with ease throwing a questioning glance to his sister who looked very angry standing in her pyjamas crossing her arms. "Drunk." Scarlett helped fill in the blanks as he shrugged Daena off him. 

"Help?" He mouthed back not knowing what to do. Usually Jace would've expected Scarlett to help straight away but not speaking in ages and suddenly conversing more than twice a day made him realise that he didn't know his sister very well.

"Shes your friend." Scarlett hissed leaving the room.

Jace didn't have time to react because Daena wrapped her arms around his neck. "Is this what she did?" She whispered standing on her tiptoes "Is this how she got you trapped?"

"What?" He asked removing her arms. 

"Did she tell you to hide away?" 

"Daena sit down." Jace said reaching out for her to guide her to sit. Daena stretched out her arms yawning "I will stay a week here." She declared and without another word said between the two, she walked perfectly up the stairs wearing a devilish smile.

:::

Slipping on his new trainers that his father sent over as a present for them not coming home in awhile was a perfect start to a crap morning. Jace had overslept yesterday and awoke to Nova pouring cold water on him, all to say that he had missed an entire school day sleeping at home. Clearly no point of going to school yesterday or today because Jace had to take workers shifts at their family bakery because Scarlett no longer bothered to show for her morning shift,which meant Jace got delayed again so showing up for maths- where his teacher constantly despises him- definitely would not be top priority.

"You coming or daydreaming?" Jace grabbed his bag standing up. He followed Nova out the door into his car. "You need a car that works."

"It does." Jace said igniting the engine.

"It constantly breaks down."

"Like Daena."

"Nova!" 

Swerving the car into a school parking space, Jace whacked Novas head. Since his joke earlier, Nova hadn't stopped laughing and even Jace had to stop the car a few times to wipe away tears. They kept bringing up every time Daena would cry or throw tantrums and another round of laughing would begin again. 

"We are terrible best friends to her right now." Jace said shutting down the engine to his car.

"She stole your phone, blamed Lottie." A look of pure horror met Daenas happy face when she arrived by their car. Jace got out and walked straight past her. 

"Hey!" He could hear her calling out and Novas continuing laugh which would stop at Jaces next words "SHE STOLE YOUR DOG!"

And that was probably the moment Jace started looking deeper into his relationship with her.

And not in the good way.