And I've made it extra long. Twice the length of an average chapter.
It's the longest so far.
Unfortunately, one thing I didn't do too well this time,
Was develop Nathan's character.
Anyway, it has all 4 POVs and I hope you'll like it. Thanks in advance for the comments
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“Hey hot stuff, my name’s Ashley Preston. You must be Nathaniel Peyton.” Decked in a red and unbelievably mini mini-skirt, a blonde girl sashayed up to me. She leaned in, so that her disgustingly tight and low-cut shirt gave me a ‘nice’ view of her… assets.
“Yup, that’s me.” I took another bite out of my taco.
“I think that you’re the hottest guy that I’ve ever seen.” She remarked, flipping her hair and staring at me with those ocean blue eyes. Next to me, I felt Nate’s hand clench.
Oh yeah, she does look kind of like Michelle.
“Thanks.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I had two brothers sitting next to me who were almost identical to me in looks and she was telling me this. Besides, I wasn’t impressed with shallowness and meaningless flattery, plus, I only had eyes for one girl.
Leaning in even closer, she batted her eyelids in an effort to look attractive, but to me, she looked like had something irritating in her eye. “I’m free this Saturday,”
Goodness. She was going to ask me for a date.
“Uh, that’s great for you.” I grabbed my lemonade, sipping on it.
“I’m free almost every day after school.” She smiled and draped her arm around my neck. I fought the urge to swat her away like a fly.
“Oh,”
“You wanna go out, then?” She extracted her arm from me and folded her arms under her boobs, purposely trying to make her self look more appealing by pushing them up.
I tried not to shudder, holding back my vomit. I didn’t like being rude, so I struggled to find words that would gently let her down, but Helen, bless her, came to my rescue.
“Are you a moron or what, Preston?” Helen snapped, her short auburn hair bopping with her head movement. “It’s pretty obvious Nathaniel doesn’t have any interest in you.”
I winced. It was true that I didn’t have any interest in Ashley, but Helen needn’t put it so bluntly.
“How do you know? What are you, his mother?” Ashley sneered.
“I’m his best friend and I think I know him well enough, you stupid Shelby-wannabe.”
“Nathaniel, you want to go out with me, don’t you?” I tried not to snicker at Ashley’s over inflated ego. “I promise we’ll have a lot of fun.” She beamed in a manner that probably meant she was trying to be sexy. I tried not to think of what she meant by ‘fun’.
“Sorry,” I apologised with a sincere tone, but not truly feeling sorry for her. “But I’m not dating anyone right now.”
“See? Get that?” Helen hissed, her sienna eyes burning into Ashley’s ocean blue ones. “Nathaniel’s not interested, so stop shoving your boobs in every boy’s face, thinking that they’ll go out with you.”
“He said we wasn’t dating, not that he wasn’t interested!” Ashley growled. “Are you deaf or what, bitch?”
There was a moment of silence at my lunch table. I saw Nate’s hands grip tightly around his chair, his knuckles white. His expression was that of a person ready to commit murder. Helen was prepared to retort back, but Nathan quickly clamped his hand around her mouth.
“Ashley,” Nathan calmly addressed her, but I could the annoyed edge in his voice. Only Helen, Nate and I could decipher the emotions in his voice. Everyone else would assume he was calm, but we could hear the strain. “Please do not call Helen rude names.”
Out of the three of us, Nate, Nathan and I, Nathan was known to be the most protective of Helen, not that Nate and I weren’t.
“She wasn’t being very nice either!” Ashley protested, pouting and tossing her hair again.
“Helen, apologise to Ashley.” Nathan threw Helen a meaningful glance.
“But-“ Helen started, but then Nathan gave her his big-brother-authority look.
Her forehead wrinkled, and Helen grudgingly muttered, “I’m sorry,”
Nathan smiled serenely at Ashley, but we could see that it was a façade. “Ashley, I would advise you to leave, now that my brother has made his intentions clear.”
We watched Ashley strut away from our table, to join Shelby, Ashlee and Ashleigh, her nose in the air.
“That I didn’t rip your idiotic face off.” Helen finished her apology.
***
Despicable.
Throwing herself shamelessly at my brother, showering him with false affection, I knew that such a relationship wouldn’t last. I wanted to slap her when she touched my brother, but clenched my fists instead. My mother would be horrified if I punched a girl.
I glared at Ashley Preston with hatred. She was just like every other girl, pretending they like you, then the next moment they stomp on your heart and rip it apart. They were all like that.
I couldn’t imagine associating with any girl, with the exception of Helen and Melody.
I couldn’t really hear what they were saying, only making out Ashley’s pathetic whining voice and Helen trying to knock some sense into her.
My breathing became slightly hitched as I remembered Michelle. Ashley looked very much like her; shallow, pretty faces who would betray the second they found a flaw in you, or someone who looked better.
“…Are you deaf or what, bitch?” That was Ashley’s voice. I didn’t lift my head, but instead, grasped my chair tightly, trying not to end up punching Ashley. How dare she insult Helen.
I listened in as Nathan intervened. He was always very protective of Helen, not that Nathaniel and I weren’t. Our mother and father thought that Nathan would end up going out with Helen, but over the years, it looked as if they regarded each other more as siblings. Helen was also going out with a junior at Haverley High.
I heard Helen apologise to Ashley and my grip on the chair tightened. She shouldn’t have to apologise.
After Ashley walked off, I heard Helen finish her sentence. “That I didn’t rip your face off.” The corner of my mouth twitched, but I didn’t join in the laughter at Helen’s statement.
“We had to find some way to get rid of her.” Nathan reasoned, flashing a special, charming grin, reserved solely for our ‘sister’. “And that worked.”
Helen leaned affectionately on Nathan’s side, wrapping her arms around him. “You couldn’t find another way, Nathan? You know how I hate apologising to Shelby clones like her.” She pouted.
“It was the first thing I thought of, sis. You can’t really blame me for wanting to rid myself of her.”
“True.” Helen heaved a sigh, “But it had to be at my expense.”
“We appreciate your sacrifice.” Nathan grinned again, playfully mussing up Helen’s hair.
Out of the blue, I felt a slight pressure on my shoulder. Nathaniel had placed his arm on it in a comforting gesture. “Nate, it’s over. She’s gone. Oh, and you’d better finish your onion rings soon. The bell is about to ring.”
“I’ve lost my appetite.” I growled.
I relaxed my rigid posture a bit, but still remained tense. Recalling memories of Michelle were always an agonising punch in the gut.
It was also another reason to stay away from Melody.
***
One month flew by in the blink of an eye. I had signed up to be on the school newspaper committee. I haven’t been assigned a duty yet, but I did request to be on the advice column if possible, since I heard that the previous columnist had just graduated. It was always fun to help people out.
As hard as it was to believe, my relationship with Nathaniel had improved quite substantially, and he seemed to really be making an effort not to piss me off. Though, he didn’t succeed very well, slipping up quite frequently. I had also become better acquainted with Helen, and like Nathan said, she was really nice, though she may not look the part sometimes. I still tended to be a bit shy around Nathan, but I was slowly coming out of shell. I actually think these people really wanted to be my friend.
But I shouldn’t think that. I can’t let myself be disappointed.
I couldn’t say the same for Nate though. He was still very distant towards me, the only door to his emotions, his signature Peyton triplet eyes, remained an opaque, brilliant green colour, never revealing emotions for more than a second. I didn’t attempt to socialise with my other classmates either. Most of them compromised of boys who strangely, liked me in the let’s-go-out-on-a-date way, or girls who eyed me with disdain.
The teachers weren’t piling us with a lot of homework yet, but there were numerous projects in store for us. So far, I had done five individual projects, and I had just been assigned a new one.
It was a home economics project due in two weeks, where we had to get into groups of four. Helen had offered to pair with me and join two other students, instead of joining the triplets and leaving me to fend for myself. Nathaniel and his brothers had actually invited a boy called ‘Robert’ to join them, and Helen and I had joined two other girls I was unfamiliar with.
However, our home economics teacher, Mr Griffiths, insisted that every group have at least one girl to help out the boys and that there could not be an all-girls group either. Apparently, Mr Griffiths had little faith in the boys, after witnessing many traumatizing incidents, where the boys either incinerated their food, or the kitchen.
Helen glared and I gawked as we watched a horde of girls flocking over to the triplets, begging to be part of their group.
Mr Griffiths had to split everyone up for us in the end. My group mates were Nathaniel and Nathan while Nate ended up with Helen and Ashleigh, who Helen bitterly described as one of the Shelby clones. Both our groups were one person short, as there were not enough students.
Our project was to create a simple, but balanced three-course meal for a teenager. My group hadn’t discussed what we were going to do and when we were going to do it though, because the bell rang before we could converse.
***
“I spoke to Mr Griffiths yesterday, and he informed me that your class has been given a home economics project. We discussed it for a while, and I have decided to combine your home economics project with the biology project I am assigning you.”
The class listened attentively to Miss Watkins as she elaborated, handing us the details of our project. “We have recently covered the topic of digestion, from what gets digested, to how and where the food is transported. Your task is to create a powerpoint presentation of the food’s journey through a human’s digestive system. You will combine two groups into one, and amongst yourselves, pick a single dish that you will be doing for home econs, and illustrate its journey. Points will be given for how detailed your powerpoint is, how many different types of enzymes you use, elaborating the digestive organs’ functions, and of course, how accurate your information is.”
“Miss Watkins, will this be counted as part of our biology grade?” Nathaniel asked, his hand shooting up into the air.
“Naturally. It is a very big and tedious project, but if you do a good job, you will be rewarded. It will account for sixty percent of this term’s grade, so if you hand up a sloppy piece of work, it will take a toll on your biology mark.”
Nathaniel’s hand shot up again. “What’s the other forty percent, and when is this project due?”
“The other forty percent will be from a test you will be taking in slightly about a month’s time, and it is the only chance for you to make up for your project if you do not do well. I am giving you three weeks to complete the project. Any more questions, Mister Peyton?”
My brother shook his head.
“Good. You will now get into your groups of no less than six people, and start discussing. Get moving, please.”
Like magnets, I was instantly drawn to my brothers, and my group paired up with Helen’s.
I quickly flipped open my thick textbook, reviewing what I had learnt about the topic. I’m not going to risk getting anything below an A-plus for my Biology. I must get into the honour roll.
Nathaniel peered over my shoulder, looking at the notes that were scribbled all over my book. “Ugh, headache.” He commented, rubbing his head. “Nathan, I know you’re ‘Mr A-plus’ and everything, but don’t you ever get dizzy from looking at this thing?”
I was panicking. Darn. Sixty percent, sixty percent, sixty percent…
“Nathaniel, I can’t help it if you’re so content with getting your B-pluses, but this project is very crucial to our grades, if you haven’t noticed.” I snapped impatiently.
“Nathan, chill. We know the honour roll is important to you and all, but its only the beginning of the project, plus I think you already know everything in that chapter. You were just reciting it to me yesterday.” Helen patted me on my head.
“I believe we were supposed to discuss the details of our project, little bro.” Nate added, in his bored voice. “Now why don’t you close that book so that we can get started?”
I sighed. Helen and Nate were right, I needed to stop worrying so much. Reluctantly closing my textbook, the six of us sat around one of the tables.
“The details of the project would best be discussed at someone’s house, because right now, I don’t think anyone’s figured out what they’re doing for Home Economics yet.”
“Nathan’s right. So who’s house are we going to? I nominate the Peyton estate!” Helen chirped, before anyone could answer.
“I don’t know where that is.” Ashleigh spoke softly, looking at everyone but Helen and Nate.
I still remembered the incident. It happened not too long ago.
”Umm…hi Nate,” Ashleigh fidgeted uneasily on the spot, not meeting my brother’s eyes. “I was wondering if you would… go out on a date… with me.”
“You’re recognise you, you hang out with Shelby and the other two Ashleys in our class, don’t you?” Nate questioned, dropping his head to read his book.
“Umm… sort of.”
Nate slowly looked up from his book, replying in a cold voice. “No thanks.”
A few seconds later, Helen walked into the class, spotting the two of them. “Hey,” Wrinkling her nose, she scrutinised Ashleigh. “You’re one of the Shelby clones, aren’t you?”
Plodding back to her seat with a dejected look on her face, I heard Ashleigh mumble, “I guess I am.”
“Oh, that’s okay.” Nathaniel grinned goofily, and I felt a rush of affection for my brother. Even to people he didn’t particularly fancy, Nathaniel was a really friendly guy. “Melody doesn’t know where we live too! We’ll pick you guys up.”
“When will we have our first meeting, then?” Melody asked, looking at Nathaniel.
“Erm, does this Saturday sound okay to you guys?” My brother looked around uncertainly. Everyone agreed, arranging to meet up at ten in the morning.
“I’ll be picking you guys between nine-thirty to ten. Helen, Nate and Nathan will get started first if we’re not on time.”
“Hey Nathan,” I turned to face Helen, who was grinning as if she had just heard a joke. “Do you have a map of the Peyton estate?”
I raised an eyebrow wearing a puzzled look on my face. “Umm… no? Why?”
Helen’s grin got wider, “Because they’re gonna need it.”
I watched as Melody and Ashleigh’s faces comically took on identical masks of shock.
We had a project similar to that.
