Skater Girl (Editing)

Chap 14 - Three's a Team

Dedicated to nefiiola3 for voting about every chapter of this book <3
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"What about the three musketeers?"

"Again, that's a very costly costume. Do you know how much costume armor costs? Swords? Big hats?" I say to Terry. He raises an eyebrow at me.

"Why do you know this?"

"I like Halloween," I mumble. It's a little confession, but it gets Terry giggling.

"How about the golden trio? Harry Potter?" Mark suggests. I'm not totally against the idea, but Keith absolutely loves it.

"I can borrow my sister's robe!" he exclaims. Terry becomes even more frustrated with our costume ideas, but mostly because we rejected all of his suggestions.

"Keith-"

"I know you have one," Keith exposes. "You love the series."

"You caught me," Terry replies, immediately admitting defeat, "but Jenning doesn't have one."

"I do," I chime in, a wide smile on my face. At first I wasn't that thrilled about the idea, but to spite Terry may make it all worth while. "I also used to be a big fan."

"You're joking," he groans. "Why do we have to match?"

"We're going trick-or-treating together and you want to go as separate things? Three different costumes? We'll look stupid," Keith says matter-of-factly.

"And because it was my great idea," Evan boasts. I asked the whole group if they wanted to escort Austin and I, but Mark and Evan had already planned on attending the school's Halloween fundraiser. Meaning the school was hosting a party, and they'd just be going to the after-party, where there's actual alcohol.

That left the three of us, which wasn't a surprise. Evan had made a point though. It would be weird if we each showed up in completely different vibes.

"Jenning is clearly Hermione, and then you'd be Harry and you'd be Ron," Mark says, pointing to Keith then to Terry. Keith nods.

"Harry has no parents, I've only got one. You have both. You're Ron."

"Right because that's a fair comparison," Terry sarcastically replies. "Ron is my favorite, so I guess it works."

"Awesome! I'll ask Austin if he wants to dress as Hedwig. He's taken a liking to birds lately," I tell them. Last week, Austin told me that his teacher brought in the new classroom pet: a parakeet. Since then, he's done nothing but build Lego structures of birds, and anything that him or Gavin shared had something to do with birds, one way or another.

***

"Barn owls can eat 1,000 mice each year," Austin tells me. We snack on a fruit by the foot, taking turns between who gets the next piece. His fun fact catches me off guard, but amazes me at the same time.

"Can you eat that many mice?"

"Ew," Austin replies. "Mice are pets."

"Chickens are pets, but we still eat them."

"Chickens are also birds," he states, completely disregarding my comparison. He turns his head back to the TV as Bluey steals all his attention.

Just then, Kenzie emerges from his room. He walks over and motions for me to meet him in the kitchen. Slightly irritated (simply because I'm being asked by my older sibling to do something), I get up from the sofa and follow after him.

By the time I reach the kitchen he's already poured himself a cup of coffee, stirring his cream and sugar with ease. The way he leans against the counter tells me he had a long shift this morning.

"You spoke to dad?"

"Spoke to him is an overstatement. I texted him," I clarify.

"Pffft, okay smart ass. Still surprised you did it. I was convinced you had him blocked the whole time."

"I did," I admit. I glance over at Austin and realize I had left the rest of the fruit by the foot with him. I rummage through our pantry and grab another for myself.

"You didn't have to agree to fly out. Kinda curious what made you change your mind."

The green candy wrapper shines under our kitchen light. I shrug. "It would make him less pushy if I went for once," I reason, ripping apart a piece of the roll up. "And you're clearly not going to buy that reason so I should just skip to telling you that one of my best friends is also moving to New York."

Kenzie sets his mug down on the counter. His posture straightens up, and he leans his head over to get a better look at my face. "Best friend? Did I hear that right?"

"Yeah. Shocker huh?"

He smiles softly. "I'm glad," he says to me. "Restarting also doesn't seem too bad. I could tell you've been thinking about it."

"I have."

"And this trip would help you think about it. Time away from all of this."

I nod and rip another piece to eat. The papers hung up on the fridge stare back at me. A drawing of our family on Christmas keeps its eye contact.

"I don't mean to guilt you or anything into making a particular decision," Kenzie sings, "but your brothers would miss you super duper much. They wouldn't know what to do without their only sister."

"Right, that's definitely not a biased statement."

"I know I'm the one who said that a fresh start could be a good idea," Kenzie begins, not-so-subtly pulling me into a hug.

"Gross," I say under his grasp. He laughs and pulls me in tighter.

"But you don't need to start over. You just need to start somewhere."