Our Time In High School- KotLC AU

Rain

Keefe POV:

I scrolled through the pictures that I had taken yesterday after school of all the sports teams practicing. To be honest, they were kinda trash. Blurred bodies, awkward expressions and weird colouring. I couldn't get Sophie's challenging words, 'it's so on' out of my head.  She said it, with her normally perfectly styled blonde hair wildly sticking to her face, her golden-brown eyes sparking with annoyance and her shirt still bunched up from her freak out about the spider that I had- yes, I'll admit it- put down her shirt. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I knew it wasn't a poisonous spider, I didn't know she would freak and I sure as heck didn't know she would pull off her shirt! I was waiting in tense anticipation for what she meant with those words. A goody-two-shoes like Sophie couldn't do any harm, could she?

"Keefe, get in here..." My mother's voice slurred from the room next to me. I walked into the living room, bracing myself for another of her drunken tangents.

"Yeah?"

She looked to me from the couch, hair greasy and her body seemed even thinner than usual. "Pick up your sister, from school."

I just nodded, knowing not to argue with my mom when she was drunk. So I pretty much just never argued with my mom. I walked to the front and grabbed the keys from the little dish in the front. "Oh, don't use the keys, boy. Paul took the car." And... there was the catch.

I felt anger bubbling up in my throat and swallowed it down. "You gave the other set of keys and the car to another one of your... hookups?!" We had already gotten one car almost stolen and one very much stolen because of my mother's awful flings, which was way more than her minimum wage budget could afford.

"Oh don't act so high and mighty," she snarled. "Paul is a better guy than you'll ever be."

I rolled my eyes, playing off my hurt as anger. "Whatever. How am I supposed to pick Abigail up then?"

"Use your brain, Keefe. Take a bus or walk."

No way in hell was I walking across the city to pick up my sister from school. Nuh-uh. So I grabbed some change from the same dish and counted out dimes and quarters like I had done so many times before and walked out the door.

* * *

"C'mon, Abs, let's go." I urged, tugging on my four-year-old sister's hand, Abigail.

"But Keefeeee, I wanna finsh my cawots!" She reached to the table that had half-gnawed-on carrots. I felt bad pulling her from one of the only healthy snack of the day since our dinner was usually pizza pops, but the teacher was already giving me dirty looks for being this late.

When I finally got Abby outside, I only saw the backside of the last bus of the night driving away. "Oh my freaking god, are you kidding me?!" I shouted, kicking a can on the sidewalk.

Abigail squeezed my hand. "Aw you okay, Keefey?"

I forced a smile. "Yeah, Abs, don't worry, we'll just have to walk home today." I looked up at the sky, worried. It had clouded over and the last thing we needed was to be rained on.

"But it's sooooo fawww!" She whined.

"Then let's get moving, right?" I scooped her up and slung her on my back.

She shrieked, giggling loudly. "Go, Keefey!"

We ran almost a mile until I started to slow down, sweat dripping down my back. My legs were tired, the sky was pouring buckets and I knew I still had four more miles to go. I dropped Abigail gently off my back. "Can you walk for a bit, Abs?"

Her teeth chattered and she nodded, looking up at me with wide green eyes. "Keefey? Where's mommy?"

"She's... busy," I sighed heavily, running my hand through my dripping wet hair.

"Don wha?"

Before I could reply, a bright red SUV pulled up beside us and rolled down the passenger side window. I looked into the car, curious and saw Sophie, looking at us with a concerned expression. "Keefe? What are you doing out here? It's pouring!"

I purposefully turned away, looking forward, pulling Abigail along. "Keefey? Who dat?" She stage-whispered.

"Nobody." We kept walking, but the car followed us.

"Keefe, c'mon! You two are going to get a cold! Just get in the car, I'll give you a ride home."

I looked at Abigail, how she was shivering furiously, her clothes soaked through. "Fine. But only because my sister is here."

"You know, some people would consider this me doing them a favour." She replied snarkily.

"Yeah, Keefey," My sister chirped, grinning cheekily.

I ignored them and climbed into the passenger seat, only caring a little that I was getting her clean leather seats wet. "Where to?" She asked, shifting her stick into gear.

"Um, you can just drop us off at school, our house is right by there." There was no frickin' way she was seeing our beat down, cheap house.

She dragged her eyes away from the road and looked at me with a stern expression. "Keefe, please. I thought you agreed on letting me drive you home."

Abigail patted my bicep from the back seat. "Ya, Keefey. Be nice."

I glared playfully at Abigail and sighed. "Fine!" After listing off our address though, I shook out my hair in retaliation so water droplets sprayed all over Sophie.

She squeaked a little and swerved before regaining control of her vehicle. "Jesus, Keefe! Don't add to the list of reasons why I need payback!"

Abigail laughed loudly and whipped her long blonde tresses into my face. "Payback!"

Sophie smirked. "Looks like your own family betrayed you."

"Oh well," I said, working hard to keep a smile on my face. They had. In more ways than one.

I turned to look out the window, aware of the tension building up in the car. Sophie seemed to realize this was a touchy subject because she spoke again. "Did you get some pictures of the sports teams?"

I grunted. The silence seemed to get heavier as we pulled up in front of my house. I was relieved to see that our car was back in the driveway, but my mood plummeted when I heard a male voice shouting. My mom was screaming so loudly that we could hear it from inside the car even though the shouts were coming from inside. Immediately, Abigail broke into tears and beside me, Sophie stiffened. I opened my door and ran around to where Abigail was sitting. I gathered her in my arms, whispering cheery thoughts into her ears and pulling her out of the car. Sophie seemed extremely uncomfortable as Abby screamed that she wanted to stay in the car.

"Wait!" Sophie called when I finally got my screaming sister out of the car. "She can stay. Both of you can. If something is going on in your house, you two can stay at my place. I completely understand."

I scowled at her. "No, you don't. It's fine. We survived fine way before you came out of your self-absorbed bubble. It's not like we need rescuing."

"Keefe, please! My parents are out of town for the night on a business trip and they brought my brother with them. We have a guest room too. It's just one night. Nobody will have to know if that's what makes you feel better."

It did. Abigail pulled on the collar of my shirt, staring at me with eyes. I sagged a little. "Never again." Then I climbed into the backseat with Abby as Sophie sped away from our little house of horrors.