Everything Short of Clarity
Disclaimer: I own nothing, got it?
Rating: Hard R, for sexual and adult themes, underage drinking, and drug use.
Word Count: 3018
Ships: Alex/Isabel. Kyle/Tess. CC/UC.
Summary: [AU. No Aliens.] How can you confess how you feel when not everything's out on the table?
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Diane Evans had been up since four that morning, doing things here and there,
helping her husband get ready for work and making breakfast before she
herself had to head to the hospital. Looking at her watch, she promptly walked
up stairs and entered Max and Michael’s room, opening the blinds to let the
sunshine in and waking her eldest boys.
“Come on, rise and shine,” her voice chimed. She saw that Max was rubbing his
eyes with the heels of his hands, groggily throwing his legs over the bed and
walked zombie-like out the door. Michael, on the other hand, still laid sprawled
across his mattress, his feet hanging over the edge and his head beneath his
pillow, attempting to block out the blinding light.
“You can’t make me go back,” he muffled grumpily from his hiding.
“I am your mother and you live in this house, so yes, I can make you go back,”
she replied, amused. Every year it was a new battle to get Michael out of his
bed.
Diane knew that Michael hated school with the utmost of passions, and had
promised to drop out the day he turned sixteen, saying that it was a waste of
his time. That didn’t go over well with her or Phillip, but after many arguments
and time spent reprimanding her son of his future, Michael had relented and
agreed to at least finish high school, as long as they didn’t force him to go to
college. Though she wished he would reconsider, they had decided to save that
disagreement for another day.
Michael grunted something from where he lay, and Diane rolled her eyes and
placed both hands on the edge of the comforter he lay wrapped in. Using any
muscle strength she possessed, she snatched the covers from around him,
which in turn, caused him to roll out of it like silverware out of a napkin and fall
off the bed.
“Up!” she said, exiting the room and leaving a bewildered Michael on the floor.
He mumbled something incoherent and stood.
Having finally woken all her children, with the exception of Isabel, as she was all
ready in Diane’s bathroom showering, Diane headed back downstairs to set the
table. While she put plates and silverware out, her children trickled down the
stairs, one by one, each eventually taking their designated seat at the kitchen
table.
“So what’s for breakfast?” Max yawned.
“Blueberry pancakes,” Diane replied, placing two to three saucer-sized
pancakes on each of her children’s plates, looking to each one of them and
smiling. When she got to her youngest, she said, “Nicholas, your sports physical
is after school today, so I’ll be there to pick you up.”
The boy nodded and begun to devour his breakfast; all the boys did, while their
sister and mother just watched. Diane shook her head and went to the sick to
wash dishes.
“Swine,” Isabel muttered, receiving glares from her brothers.
Max and Michael Evans were fraternal twins, the latter of the two being four
minutes older than his dear twin. They had come into the world when Isabel
was two, and though she loved them, all the testosterone in the house made
her want to live in the backyard.
Maxwell, or Max as he was called, had black hair and amber eyes, and was the
odd one out, at least in looks. He wasn’t quite as tall as his twin, who rose at a
height over six feet, and unlike Isabel, was not involved in many activities. He
didn’t play any sports nor did he participate in any clubs. He was quiet, and an
overachiever. He loved history, and, with the exception of his English class, only
read nonfiction books. On the weekends, he worked at the local UFO museum
and volunteered at the library, where he all ready spent most of his free time
during the week. Though, he could be found sometimes running the track after
school or playing basketball in the driveway with his family.
Michael, unlike Max, had light brown hair and darker eyes, and hated school. In
his free time and when he was supposed to be doing homework, he played
video and PC games. He worked at a touristy diner called the Crashdown, and
flipped burgers for a minimum wage salary. Something which their father was
not too fond of, but if it earned him some extra cash, cash that Phillip didn’t
have to give Michael to spend on things like games, so their father kept his
mouth shut. One of the few things that he and Max did share was their love of
history. It was one of the few classes Michael excelled in and enjoyed. His
mother hoped that he would take that love of history and turn it into something
more when he got older, but for now, was just happy he enjoyed
something.
Nicholas, the youngest of the Evans, was, in Isabel’s opinion, a pain in the ass.
He was a vindictive little snot-rag who raided her bedroom, went through hers
and her brothers things, and was an annoying little brat, but was the apple of
her parents’ eyes when they were home. He had brown hair, like their father
once had, and brown eyes like his sister. It was rare for two blue-eyed parents
to have brown-eyed children, but to have all of their children have darker eyes
than they, was an oddity. All the siblings believed that Nicholas was an oddity
though, with his cold, calculating stare and like of anything involving violence
and bloodshed. He was that kid that fried ants with a magnifying glass.
Having had enough, most of the children pushed their plates forward and their
chairs out, and grabbed their things as they realized that school started in a
half hour. School was only a fifteen-minute ride from the house, but Isabel liked
to get their at least fifteen minutes early.
“Come on,” Isabel said to Max and Michael, drinking down the last sip of her
orange juice. As she stood from her seat and started to head for the door,
Nicholas attempted to trip her as their mother’s back was turned, but failed in
his attempts, as Isabel all ready knew that he hadn’t done his morning ritual of
torturing her and had concluded he’d do it before she left. She received ‘the eye’
from her youngest brother when she smacked him hard upside his head before
their mother could turn around.
“What was that noise?” her mother questioned. Isabel shrugged her shoulders
and was out the door, Max and Michael in tow.
Alex stood by Liz Parker at her locker, making small talk and fiddling with his
backpack straps.
He hadn’t slept well the night before, but he never ever did the night before
school starts, which always left him looking fatigued and unprepared. He had
also realized too late when taking a shower this morning that he had forgot to
put on sun block when he went swimming with Isabel yesterday, and had
looked in the bathroom mirror to find himself a boiled lobster. Though his mother
had slathered on the Aloe Vera, he leaned against the blue school lockers to
cool the heat emanating from his body. His backpack wasn’t helping in the
least.
“So how was your last day of summer, Parker?” he asked.
“It was good. I had stayed the night at Maria’s on Saturday, and we spent the
day at the mall yesterday, buying new school clothes and talking. A lazy day, if
you will,” she answered, closing her locker shut. Alex winced.
“Sunburn?”
“Yeah,” he drew out, touching the back of his neck.
She lifted his shirt sleeve and glanced at his shoulder, which was red as a
tomato and peeling. “Gotta be more careful, Alex,” she said, concerned. “Don’t
want you getting skin cancer, now do we?”
“Not really,” he grimaced, tugging his sleeve back down. “I really wish I wasn’t
wearing a shirt, though. This thing is chafing me like crazy.” He took off his
backpack and stared at it, saying “I’m dragging you today.”
Liz rolled her eyes and adjusted the binder and few notebooks in her arms. She
didn’t bother bringing a backpack today, as she knew the first day would only
bring syllabi and maybe a textbook or two, which was unlikely, as their
bookstore would most likely need a couple days for any new books coming in
and inventory.
“So what’s your schedule like?” she asked, opening her binder and viewing her
own.
“This year, all AP classes, with an elective or two for good measure,” he took his
schedule out of his back pocket and unfolded it. “Let’s see, we have HPA, tech
support, European History, English, Calc BC, Baseball, and Econ/Government,”
he read off.
“Sounds hectic,” Liz said, wondering briefly if her senior year would be nearly as
busy as Alex’s. Just contemplating on her sophomore year was hell enough.
“You and Isabel share any classes?”
“Yeah, a couple,” he nodded.
As he and Liz discussed their schedules and expectations for the year, Alex
came to the conclusion that Liz was alright. He’d only known of little things
about her from her parents and, of course, Isabel, but he founded that she was
very easy to talk to, and quite mature for being fifteen years old. She was so
determined to achieve her dreams, and that’s what he liked about her.
“Anyway, I have to meet Maria,” she said, bringing Alex out of his reverie. “So I’ll
see you later?”
“When’s your lunch period? I have Lunch A.”
“Darn, I have Lunch B, but I suppose I may see you in the stands later waiting
for practice to let up?” He nodded.
Alex, when allowed, would sometimes come in the last ten minutes of the girls’
volleyball practice and wait for Isabel. He had always thought the constant
sounds of a ball hitting an open hand or being volleyed would bother him, but
had been proven wrong when Isabel finally convinced him to go to a game, and
oddly found it quite easy to concentrate. It was almost therapeutic;
although, the sounds of cheering humans often times disrupted his thought
process and tranquility.
Alex wasn’t surprised to find out that Liz and he had different lunches. The way
the school had set it up was so that underclassmen, freshmen and sophomores,
would have their lunch after fifth hour, while the upperclassmen, juniors and
seniors, had their lunch after fourth. Every once in a while, though, due to
schedule conflicts, which happened more often than the office tallied, Alex would
find a few out-of-place classmen at lunch. As he watched Liz’s retreating form
scuttle down the hallway, he turned around and saw, just in the nick of time,
that Isabel was walking up toward him.
Sitting down at a desk in the middle of the room next to her friend Maria, Liz
fidgeted with the bit of school supplies she brought and giggled with Maria
when her friend commented that they’d most likely get some old fogy for English
this year. While she chatted and glanced at the clock, she noticed that Max
Evans had crossed her line of vision and couldn’t help but blush.
Liz had a slight crush on Max Evans, but would never admit to it. Every girl in her
class seemed to have a crush on the mysterious loner who preferred to spend
his free time at school in the library; more often than not helping the librarian
put books back on their designated shelves.
During the beginning of the year, to escape the summer heat, Liz could be
located in two places. The gym, practicing her serves and sets and talking to her
teammates, or in the library, usually reading her science textbook, and out of
those occasions, she had only ever spoken to the enigmatic boy once. They
never seemed to share a class, as he always had his classes the opposite hour
of hers. If she had Biology second hour, he’d have it fifth hour; if she had World
History fourth hour, he’d have it second hour. Although it was only her
sophomore year at West Roswell High, she was happy to find out that they
finally shared an English class together.
“Whatcha thinking’ about?” Maria asked, hovering over Liz’s notebooks and
staring in the direction that she was. “Ah, admiring the boy wonder over there, I
see.” She smiled playfully and wriggled her eyebrows at her good friend, to
which Liz furiously blushed.
“I’m not admiring him. I’m, uh, studying him. I’ve never have actually
shared a class with Isabel’s brother. Our schedules have almost the same exact
list of classes, yet they never seem to coincide.” Liz shrugged her shoulders and
took out her dividers to write down whatever the teacher would ask to label
them as.
“You’re such an A-type,” Maria observed. “You need to learn to be
spontaneous,” she admonished, noticing Liz’s neat stack of color-coded subject
dividers.
“Spontaneity is synonymous with being unprepared,” Liz sternly replied. She
knew she was an ‘A-type’ as most students tended to call overachievers, like
her. She had learned the first day of her freshmen year that high school had its
own class system, which she had been very annoyed by at first, but now that
she had a year under her belt, she had even begun to use it, much to her own
chagrin. “Not that I’m saying you are, but the word ‘spontaneous’ will never be
a word that people will use to describe me,” she added.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Maria nodded nonchalantly, watching the door and noting
that the knob was turning. “Oh, here we go.”
“Here’s to a new year,” Liz whispered to her friend as their teacher, Mr. Carver,
sat his briefcase down on his desk and began writing something on the white
board, “and hopefully, new friends.” She glanced over her shoulder at the
dark-haired young man that sat in the back of the class, taking his binder from
his tatty backpack.
Maria stifled a laugh when her friend quickly maneuvered to face the board
when Maxwell Evans gazed up; seeming to know that she had been staring.
“You really need to work on your technique, Chica.”
The day went as most students had predicted. Teachers preaching
studiousness and punctuality while passing out syllabi and a list of supplies
needed for their respective classes as the students dozed off in the back of
their classrooms, all ready bored of the new school year. The last hour of the
day had finally arrived and Isabel, Alex, Tess, and Courtney filed into their AP
Economics class, dreading what was to come.
“So I heard from Laurie,” Alex started, sitting down at the desk in the right
corner of the classroom, “that we have a new Econ teach this year, and that he
doesn’t take jack shit from his students.”
“Yeah, I heard that, too.” Courtney added, “I also heard that he used to be
some hot shot architect or something, but due to stress and health problems
that he had to take a breather.”
Tess then said, perplexed, “That’s not quite what got around to me. I heard
that his mother or other was very ill and that he decided to take leave to care
for her.”
“That’s sweet,” Isabel said offhandedly, tying her hair in a pony tail. “I heard
that he’s hot.” Tess and Courtney concurred. Alex shuddered.
“Girls,” he mumbled to no one in particular, but saw that Courtney and Tess had
rounded on him with looks of ‘Don’t start with us.’ “He’s a teacher, for crying out
loud. Who cares if he’s hot or not? We’re still going to get homework and have
to take tests.”
“Yeah, but the class is more bearable if there’s eye candy,” Courtney swiftly
supplied, Isabel nodding along with her.
Alex rolled his eyes and surrendered to the three females surrounding him. It
was a lost battle. “Why would an architect be teaching Economics?” Before he
could get an answer, though, the teacher had walked in and ended their
discussion, to which Alex was somewhat grateful.
He noticed that their teacher was young, and by that he meant that the guy
looked to be in his late twenties to early thirties, was handsome as hell, (as all
the girls in the class could not keep their eyes from tailing the guy), and was
rugged-looking. Alex couldn’t help but to think nasty thoughts of his Economics
teacher while the guy passed out the class syllabus. Though, his thoughts went
blank when the guy addressed him.
“Mr. Whitman, I presume?”
Surprised, Alex responded with a ‘yeah.’ “How’d you guess?”
“I’ve seen your picture in the living section of the newspaper, and have heard
very good things about you from all your teachers, as well as your coach, heard
that you’re one hell of a pitcher.”
“I suppose,” Alex modestly answered.
“Oh, come on, Whitman! Be smug for once,” a classmate said in response, to
which others had begun adding their own praises of Alex’s abilities.
Alex flushed deeply. It wasn’t the first time that a teacher had commented on
his skills, but he couldn’t help but to feel self-conscious under everyone’s eyes
as they stared at him to answer more honestly.
“Okay, yeah,” he said quickly, feeling a gentle rubbing into his shoulder, which
he had winced at first, but the pressure had let up. The hand had most likely
been Isabel’s, a gesture that he appreciated very much from her.
“Why?”
“I’m just a huge fan of Baseball, no matter what medium. Just wanted you to
know that I’ll definitely be looking forward to when the season starts in the
spring, so to see you play.” The guy finished passing out the syllabus, and sat
on the stool behind the podium at the front of the class.
“Anyway, I guess I should introduce myself. The name’s Grant Sorenson, or Mr.
Sorenson to all of you, and I am your new Econ/Government teacher for this
year.”