I’m not getting out of this. I know it already. They’re going to chase me down to the end of time and when they catch me, they’ll torture me until I give them some information they think they want to hear, but when I tell them, they won’t believe me.

Ah, sorry about that, I was overreacting just a little. I am Ella Watingale, and am 13 years old and one of the middle children of my family. The “they” I was talking about were my three older siblings Anna, Rafiel (we call him Ref), and Ali. They are currently chasing me around our house because they want to know if it’s true that I got a boyfriend. In reality, I didn’t, but I made a friend that is a guy, and that is the automatic mentality of my older siblings. Anna, my oldest sibling, is 16 years old, yet sometimes acts like she is 12. She has blonde hair and hazel eyes and loves webcomics. Ali, my second oldest sibling, has copper brown hair and emerald green eyes. She is 15 years old and is the popular sibling out of all of us (mostly because of her looks), and she loves music. She can literally play almost anything on piano and violin.

Ref is my only brother, poor guy, and is the closest sibling to my age (I have 5 siblings). He has strawberry blonde hair and green eyes and is 14 years old, he’s only a few months older than me, but he recently had his birthday. Ref loves sports and, for some odd reason, school.

“Ha! I caught you!” says Anna as she catches me by the arm. “Tell us the truth. Are you really dating Adam?”

“No! I literally just met him today! Not to mention I’m not old enough! Seriously guys he is just my friend.”

“Sure,” says Ref in a sarcastic tone. “You guys totally weren’t flirting at lunch today.”

“It wasn’t flirting! We have some classes together and were talking about something funny that happened in english. Nothing else.”

“Right... You’re just saying that.. so you don’t.. feel embarrassed…. You are seriously redder ...than a tomato... right now.” Ali says between giggles and panting.

“Whatever! You guys just want to find a reason why I could possibly make a friend on my first day of high school!” I shout as I break free and run to my room.

~ ~ ~

I've never been good at making friends. I was always the nerd of the class, the top of my class, the girl who was always wanted as a teammate in a project, but only because of my smarts. So that's just become the one thing people tease me about. Sometimes, even by a bully. So, I've become very sensitive to what people say when I tell them I made a friend, or even talk about a friend in general. It's almost like a phobia. 

“Ella?” Ref says knocking on my door. “Can I come in?”

“No. Go away.” I say as he peeks his head in. “I don't want to talk right now.”

“I figured you'd say that, so I got permission from mom to overrule that statement.” He says smugly.

“Jerk. What do you want?” I say bitterly.

“I just want to talk to you, Half-Twin.” He says as if I didn't already know that.

“Oh, don't pull that on me, Ref. What do you want to talk about.”

“I’m sorry about how we made you feel earlier. We were just teasing you.” He said.

“I'm sure you are. My only question is, why are you the only one out of the three of you who had the decency to talk to me?” I said.

“They were both afraid you'd throw a book at them like a machine gun… like last time. You know you have like an unlimited supply of books almost, right?”

“Oh, shut up!” I say as I throw a crumpled drawing at him. “You throw basketballs (or any ball for that matter) when you're mad.”

“Whatever, silly.” He says as he walks out.