Ava's morning routine ran like clockwork.
She would wake up around half-past six, take a warm shower, then come out of her room, dressed in her school uniform with her hair damp.
It would be around seven by then and I would always be in the dining room, eating my usual breakfast of thick cut beef sausages and creamy scrambled eggs. My younger sister would head to the fridge, with Instagram in one hand, and take out her overnight oats that she had made the night prior.
She would chop up a banana and sprinkle some mixed berries into her cold oats, all the while fixated on her phone, before taking her seat right opposite me. Usually, our eldest sister, Lucia, would sit there, but Ava liked to take that spot if she wasn't home.
We would never make conversation, the only sounds in the dining room coming from her phone speakers, and sometimes when she hummed a pop tune.
But on that day, the dining room was silent as we ate our meals. The insane idea that maybe the pill had magically worked and my little sister would love me again hovered at the surface of my thoughts.
There was no such thing as magic or a love pill, but I still held hope to relive the days of us hanging out like actual siblings. So I did the one thing we never did for years. I looked at my beautiful little sister across the dining table and opened my mouth.
"Ava."
Either she didn't hear me or she ignored me. Her eyes were still on her iPhone and she was absentmindedly scrolling through her explore page while she munched on her oats.
I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she just didn't hear me, but I knew the truth. Still, I tried again.
"Ava."
This time, she reacted, but not in the way I wanted. My sister squeezed her eyes shut and heaved a heavy sigh, her slender shoulders dipping up, then down. When she opened her eyes, her blues were so vivid.
"What is it, Aaron?"
I fidgeted in my seat, casting my gaze back down and poking my cold eggs with a fork.
"Nothing... I just wanted to say hi? How's it going?"
Ava shook her head and brought a hand up to massage her temples. "Really, Aaron? Is this how you talk to girls? Have you ever wondered about why you never had a girlfriend yet?"
"I just want to have a conversation, Ava."
She went back to her phone. I took that dismissal painfully, feeling my heart sinking to my feet and my ridiculous hope for the love pill working to crumble entirely.
Ava was never going to love me again. I fear the last time I would see her would be when she moved out to her own place. I doubt she would ever call me, never mind meet me. And if I ever reached out to her, I knew for a fact that I would receive the same treatment as I did right then.
After a few brutal minutes of uneasy silence, Ava stood up, dumped her mason jar and utensils into the dishwasher, then went back to her room where she was no doubt going to put on her makeup and style up her hair.
As the widely accepted 'prettiest girl' in the school, Ava needed to look pristine and perfect every single day. There were a lot of girls that were envious of her place as queen and would snatch her spot up the instant it became vacant.
So, I could understand why she would spend half an hour inside her bathroom to style her hair up into flowing Hollywood waves and make sure her mascara, eyeliner, and whatever makeup girls put on, to be nothing less than to her utmost satisfaction.
After an eternity in her room, she would finally come out, go downstairs, and drive her BMW that our parents gifted her for her last year's Christmas. She would drive to school, then waltz into class a whole thirty minutes late. Of course, the teacher wouldn't dare to reprimand her and would mark my sister's attendance as present and not a second late.
I remembered one substitute teacher didn't know any better and wrote my sister up for her late attendance. His car got vandalized the next day and his house was pelted with eggs and toilet paper every night for the next month.
My sister wouldn't say who did it. It could be her boyfriend, Kevin, who ordered his cronies to do the illegal acts, or it could be Ava herself who had a legion of thirsty men willing to do whatever she said.
Even the headmaster did his best to ignore my sister. Ava didn't follow school uniform policies, even though we attended a so called 'strict' Christian private school. She wore her blazer and her bow just right, but everything else sailed past the line. Her blouse always had the first two buttons undone, and her gray pleated skirt was altered to be three inches shorter than normal, ending way above her knees.
Only she and her friends in her circle could wear their uniforms like that. All the other girls who had emulated her style had been reprimanded and disciplined. So it was plainly obvious which girls in the school were in the elite club, headed by my sister, and which ones were not.
Such was the life of the queen.
***
Classes were a bore as usual. The lecturer would explain a concept and only the nerds would listen. They had to be careful, though. If you scored too highly on tests, you'd be forced to do the homework for many or you'd get a nasty beating.
The rest of the students in the theater hall were chattering among themselves. Many were on their phones, and I saw a couple of students in front of me playing an online game on their laptops.
I was seated in between two guys that I still didn't know their names yet. But I knew they hovered between the nerds and the more 'normal' people, as we like to call it. The ones who get invited to the wild parties once in a blue moon.
They knew not to talk to me too much, as that would mean being associated with the very bottom, but they also wanted to sit next to me because of my connection with my sister. They probably thought they could use me in some way to get close to Ava, but I had been silent with their consistent inquiries about my little sister.
The two guys have been especially pestering on that fateful day. Apparently, Ava had gotten into a public argument with her boyfriend, Kevin, and it was the talk of the day. It was still ten in the morning and I had to deal with their interrogations, as if I had all the answers.
I was just so done.
And it wasn't just them. Numerous guys were coming up to me to ask me the same questions too.
Aaron, did you hear what happened?
Hey Aaron, is your sister going to break up with Kevin?
How's your sister doing?
If she happens to break up with him, could I have her number?
When class was dismissed, people I didn't even know would trail behind me through the hallway, asking me the same damn questions. It felt like I was being pestered by the paparazzi.
By the time lunchtime came, I had a hoodie and a baseball cap on. I didn't like to spend my money, especially when I didn't see myself using my purchase from the school's sports shop for the foreseeable future, but after literally being asked the same ten questions a hundred times, I had enough.
The scuffed disguise worked. I walked into the school cafeteria relatively undisturbed, but groaned when I realized I had to walk through the VIP section to go to my favorite vendor, the one who cooked the mouth-watering Japanese curry.
There were a lot of people passing by, so I took my chances. Holding a breath, I put my head down and strode forward, walking as fast as my frail legs could take me.
But it seemed like my luck had run out because a deep voice spoke up and time stopped. Everyone around me stopped dead in their tracks to look at me, because not only had my name been called, the voice belonged to the one and only, Kevin Anderson, the captain of the football team and the second last person I wanted to see right then.
"Aaron," he said in that deep masculine voice of his. "Is that you?"
I exhaled my breath in a heave and turned towards him. He was sitting at the head of the VIP section, a large and black rectangular table where all the popular kids sat.
There were even bodyguards making sure no one would disturb their peace. They were just buff and tough guys that were paid with the fact that they were associating with the hottest girls in school.
Unfortunately for them, most were taken. Except for Vanessa.
I could see her. She was seated right beside my sister at the other end of the table. Both of them didn't bother to meet my eyes and were just chatting among themselves.
"Aaron," Kevin repeated, standing up and making his way towards me.
People moved out of his way and I could feel hundreds of pairs of eyes glued on me.
He finally made his way to me and clasped a firm, calloused hand on my right shoulder.
"Nice to finally meet you, Aaron," he said in that deep voice of his, even though he never bothered to acknowledge me until today. "Come sit beside me."
I didn't stop him as he moved his powerful grip from my shoulder and towards my back, where he led me to the table full of people who were obsessed with themselves.
"Sit," the jock commanded, sitting down at his spot and gesturing to his left.
There was already an empty spot for me. I held his gaze for a moment before going around him and sitting next to Liam, the richest guy in school. Apparently, his dad owned some kind of massive oil company.
The trust fund kid was looking at me. They all were. It was probably the first time an outsider was invited to have a seat at the table. Even my sister had stopped talking, focusing on her phone instead.
"Look at her," Kevin said, almost making me jump. I hadn't noticed he was leaning forward with his cheeks almost touching mine. His eyes were on my sister. "Beautiful, isn't she?"
He paused, and I had no idea how to reply to that. It was as if he wanted me to agree if water was wet.
"Umm, I guess?"
He leaned back, crossing his muscled arms on his chest and sighed. "Help me, man. When your sister is pissed off, what do you do to make her cool with you?"
I looked at Ava. She still didn't acknowledge me yet, scrolling through her Instagram feed with a thumb.
I shrugged. "I don't know."
And it was the truth. When we were young, all I needed to do was hug her and say I was sorry. But in recent years, she seemed permanently pissed off at me, and I have tried everything but only received cold shoulders in return.
Kevin didn't seem to believe me. He narrowed his eyes.
"Come on, man. Give me something."
The pressure was back on me again. Even though the cafeteria was bustling with noise, it felt like everyone's eyes were on me and holding their breaths for whatever I had to say next.
I shrugged again. "I really don't know, Kevin. If Ava is pissed, she tends to stay that way for a while. I guess give it a week or so?"
"A week?" He repeated my words as if I was telling him the world was ending. "No way, man. A week without talking to her is like..." He tried to come up with something smart but gave up. Instead, he leaned really fucking close and lowered his voice. "Look man. How about something expensive? Diamonds? Jades? Rubies? What type of precious stone does she like?"
I raised a brow. "You're going to buy her rubies?"
"Shh! Not too loud. This is supposed to be a surprise." Kevin jabbed a finger at the table. "You must know what she likes. I could give her a necklace with a really nice diamond pendant or a sapphire one. She likes pink, right?" He frowned suddenly. "But aren't pink diamonds extremely expensive?"
He looked at me for confirmation. I looked to the side, seeing if Ava could bail me out of this interrogation. She was still glued to her phone, twirling her pink hair around a finger while munching on her lunch.
But Vanessa was watching me, her expression unreadable.
"Umm..." I thought of something fast, but Kevin sighed and slapped a hand on my back, causing me to almost fall flat on my face.
"Nevermind, big man," he told me, gesturing to where he had found me with a jerk of his chin. "You can go."
The guards stepped towards me, but I was already up on shaky knees and walking as far away as possible.
***
