But actually, both of them are kinda weird, actually...
He smiles at her sometimes as though the two of them share this secret that makes them better than everyone else, and she really just wishes she knew what it was.
Because, and ok, it’s not like she’s still got a crush on him or whatever, they’re family now and they’ve been through some stuff and she’s over it, she is. But he’s still just really, like the coolest person she knows, and she wants him to like her. She doesn’t think that that’s a bad thing. And in those moments, when he smiles at her like that, she thinks maybe he really does. Like her.
They’re kind of friends. Sorta. He hangs out in her room sometimes and plays guitar while she does her homework. He asks her advice about song lyrics and what to put where. She tells him funny things she hears at school, about kids and teachers he used to know. A couple of times he’s met her from school and they’ve gone shopping, or to a movie. A couple of times he’s dragged her downstairs at midnight to watch some bad movie on cable.
They don’t talk a lot, like, properly talk. They chat. It’s nice, and easy. Sometimes she thinks it’s kind of pointless. Sometimes she thinks it might be everything.
Sometimes he still looks at her like he used to when Carla was around and they were doing something they weren’t supposed to do and she would get nervous and blurt out something ridiculous. It’s like a raised eyebrow, pursed lip, eye-rolling combination that never fails to make her feel like the smallest, most ridiculous thing in whatever room she happens to be in.
She tells him about her new English teacher and his stupid name and the stupid way he talks and the stupid assignments he sets them and the things he said to her. He laughs at the amount of times she says stupid, and then tells her to stop being a baby and just prove the guy wrong. She huffs and rolls her eyes.
“As if it’s that simple.” He smiles and purses his lips and shrugs.
“Why isn’t it?” She doesn’t have an answer to that.
On his way out of the room he stops in front of her and runs his thumb along the ridge of her brow, smiling down at her briefly before he’s gone. She doesn’t quite know what to do with that. She restarts her English assignment.
He tells her about a really awful interview and the way the guy looked at him like he was trash and how angry he felt at that moment and how he really just wanted to punch the douchebag. She laughs because the thought of violence makes her nervous, and swearing still makes her a little bit uncomfortable, and it’s just the natural reaction. She tells him to just not let people talk to him that way. He looks at her like she’s really naive and a little bit nuts.
“As if it’s that simple.” She blinks, and shrugs her shoulders.
“Why isn’t it?” He looks everywhere but her, and exhales a little too sharply.
On her way out she lays a hand on his shoulder as she passes him and lets it rest there a little longer than normal. She doesn’t stop to look at him or wait for him to look at her. She thinks he understands her.
The day after her dad’s wedding she’s on the sofa in her pyjamas, watching home movies of her and Zoe when they were really little and eating cereal right from the box. He flops down next to her and grabs a handful of Cheerios. He chucks them into his mouth and laughs out loud at something six-year-old her is doing on the tv.
“You were a ridiculous child, you know that?” She shrugs and sinks down further into the couch, biting a Cheerio in half and looking back at the screen.
“Whatever.” She mumbles.
She feels him looking at her and shifts her eyes just slightly so that she can see his face. He’s smiling at her, that way, like they’re sharing something.
He rests a hand on her cotton-clad foot, it stays there the rest of the afternoon. She wishes she got what it meant.