FAKE DATE WITH THE HOCKEY CHAMPION

ANNA'S POV

I stood outside the house, my hands sweating profusely, glasses foggy and sight blurred. The loud music coming from the house overwhelmed my thinking. I needed to think of a way to go about this, I thought, pacing.

I needed a hint on how to confront him, my stepbrother Elijah Maquin. All my efforts to get his attention through my smut messages had proven abortive.

I had put them twice under his car windshield, because I was too shy to show my face, so this was my chance to tell him about my feelings.

I walked a few steps closer and I noticed his car, parked at the corner beside Connor's. They looked identical; not everyone would be able to differentiate them.

But I had Elijah's plate number stored in my head. He was the love of my life; I knew literally everything about him.

"I thought they hated each other. How are their cars parked side by side?" I said to myself.

Mustering courage, I went in for it, but when the door swung open, I was certain I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The air reeked of alcohol, marinated with the smell of smoke and what I may presume to be hard drugs.

The attention seemed to have tottered, because all eyes were on me.

I rarely got such attention, so I wondered what I did to get it.

I walked around briefly, trying to blend in, my eyes skimming through every forehead in the room. I wondered where Elijah would be. I needed to do this and disappear, but he wasn't anywhere within sight.

I asked a few other freshmen, but they didn't seem to know, and when I almost lost hope, I spotted a silhouette that looked exactly like his.

It looked like a guy with another girl sitting on him in a position I considered intolerable.

My heart began to drum violently. It couldn't be; it was just my imagination.

I took off my glasses and wiped them off with the lace from my hoodie. I would have used my pants, but they were too colorful; it would take a lot to get dirt off green pants.

Despite wiping off the fog, my vision was the same, but I needed a closer view.

It was Elijah, with another girl. She was sitting comfortably on him, her legs wildly wrapped around him like a reptile, while he ran his hands through them.

I staggered, my legs feeling a little too heavy to take another step. I could feel my chest tightening, my breath getting cold. I couldn't believe my eyes.

"Oh my god!" I blurted tearfully. He had someone else.

"How could he?" I cried, and when I thought it couldn't hurt any further, I saw the greatest shock of my life.

Cathy!! It was Cathy Mclerkin from high school, the same girl who had bullied me so much that I almost hurt myself.

The same girl? How was she here, and why was he holding her so close? I thought.

At this point my legs couldn't hold me anymore. I wobbled and tripped, causing an unintended rattle that pulled attention towards me.

Everyone looked at me weirdly, like I was plagued. I could never understand the hate towards me.

"What are you doing here, Anna?" Elijah roared, storming towards me in anger. He was always embarrassed of me, and until now, not everyone in school knew we were step-siblings.

"I'm sorry. I was just on my way out. Forgive me for the intrusion," I replied shamefully, too embarrassed to leave. All attention was on me, on how I had made a fool of myself.

"Get out of here. You don't belong here," he said.

I looked up at him, his eyes full of disgust for me, and then I thought to myself, what was I really thinking coming here? He hated me; he would never see me any differently.

"Is it really you, Anna Lyncyth?" Cathy said mockingly, moving closer to where I was, laughing loudly. My heart sank into my chest. The adrenaline surge I felt only prompted me to run off, but my legs were still too heavy to move.

I remained there on the ground, without the strength to pick myself up.

"She's the step-sister I told you about, babe. They moved in months ago," Elijah said to her, pulling her in for a kiss right in front of me. I looked up at them while they stood there making jest of me, and my eyes betrayed me, with tears rolling down my cheeks.

"You mean this is your sister now?" she mocked.

"Step-sister, as in S-T-E-P. She could never be related to me by blood. Look at what she's wearing."

Everyone laughed at me, judging my fashion sense. I never thought anything was wrong with a yellow hoodie and green pants, but they mocked me for it, and Elijah encouraged it.

"I could swear she put those smut letters underneath your car windshield. She must have sent them; nobody else would have."

My stomach dropped. My fingers went numb at my sides.

No, no, no, no!! What was going on? Why was everything happening so fast? How did she know I had left letters on his car? I was lost and at the same time confused.

"You did that?" Elijah asked, disappointed. The sound of his voice and the look in his eyes was all the answers I needed. He loathed me, both as a sister and as a lover.

Cathy's voice rang out sharp and gleeful. "Well, well, the school clowny nerd, who wears green on purple, wants the hockey champion. I'm so happy to be here."

A roar of laughter followed. They mocked me so bad I doubted myself.

“Your family should have stayed in Florida”

She says further with a sinister smile. I think she means the move, I’m at lost for words, I could hardly understand what she was referring to, but I couldn’t ask any further question.

This was exactly how she had treated me back in high school. She had isolated me from the others and made fun of my glasses.

She had called me an owl and everyone in school called me that afterwards, and now I had to deal with her again?

"Why don't you say something?" Elijah asked.

"She's got nothing to say. She knows I'm telling the truth," Cathy said.

Everyone wanted to hear me explain myself. They wanted to hear it from me that I had written the letters, but I was too weak to defend myself. I had the words in my head, but I couldn't get them out.

"The letters were meant for me, not Elijah," hollered a man's voice down the stairs, leaving everyone in surprise, me included.