September 5, 2021

Strangely, there was not a peep in the group chat except the one-word confirmations we gave on Thursday. I found it a little strange because someone would always say something in the group chat when I had a group project. I chickened out over the idea of saying something in case nobody responded and decided to write it off to the fact that Professor Edwards is giving us time during class tomorrow. 

Settling on that conclusion, I decided to watch an old episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved to pass the time. As I watch them make their way down the hall to reach the bouncing ball, my room door is slammed open, causing me to flinch. After regaining my composure, I realized that Isaac and Lucas had slammed my door open. 

“What’s the matter?” I asked as I paused the video.

“I need a band-aid,” Isaac said.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”, Isaac said in a tone that made it easy to tell that he was lying.

“We were in the backyard, and he busted his ass,” Lucas said as he hopped onto Julianne’s bed.

“What?!” I yelped.

“He tried to do a new trick on his skateboard and fell,” Lucas elaborated.

“Izzy follow me, and I will clean your knee,” I said as I grabbed the bandaids off my shelf and went into the bathroom to look for the ointment. Isaac followed after me while Lucas went downstairs for some reason.

“It doesn’t look too bad; the ointment will make it sting for a bit, though. Also, since mom hasn’t been able to buy you guys knee pads yet, try to be a bit more careful next time,” I said as Isaac was slightly wincing when I placed the band-aid on his knee. 

As I was cleaning up, I noticed from the corner of my eye that Lucas was standing in front of us. I turned to face him and saw that Lucas was holding my skateboard.

“Why do you have my skateboard?”

“Come with us to the park,” Lucas answered.               

“Why?”

“Because you are looking more like a vampire than usual.”

I rolled my eyes and was about to say no when I heard my parents arguing about the bills again. Annoyed, I snapped the rubber band on my hand and decided to go with my brothers to the park near our house.