Part 3

3
Arden's point of view.


I hurry and I'm back in a minute or two, backpack and military history homework in hand.  I smile, walking over to Andie after taking off my shoes.

Andie looks down at her feet when I come close,  hiding her pretty baby blues for a second. "I cleared off the table," she says awkwardly after a moment, making a motion for me to sit down as she does the same.

"So," I start. "How in the world do I do this. There's a special way I have to take notes?"

She nods, her bright smile exposing her immaculate shining white teeth. "yeah, it's one of the easiest things after you figure it out." I watch her ice blue eyes watch me. She's so cute, but I refuse to try and make anything out of it right now. I've only just arrived here in this new school and just met her last night--in a terrible situation at that. She grabs my notebook and draws a grid type thing with large and small blocks, showing me where to put what information.

"Oh," I say. "I would never have been able to figure that out by myself."

"that's ok," she says, "he had to explain it to all of us at the beginning of the year. And most people still don't get it right."

I smile at her before moving onto the next step, which I can do myself. I suppose I'll stay til this is done and go home afterwards.

She has her stuff out and is done in a matter of minutes, while it's taking me forever to figure it out.

"Here," she says, leaning over my notebook again and circling the things I need and drawing arrows to where they go in the chart. I did have it done, but I grouped it wrong and confused myself.

"You'll get it," she says reassuringly.

I smile again, still feeling like a complete doofus. "you'd make a good tutor," I say stupidly, filling the silence.
"I don't think so," she says. "I would have gotten a little frustrated if you didn't get it so quickly."

I laugh and then reply, "I gotta go. The kids over there need some food, I bet. And Tommy probably isn't doing a great job taking care of business."

Andie stares at me a moment before saying, "wait. You live in the house!?" she seems so astonished when I just nod my head. Then she continues. "this doesn't make sense. I thought you were adopted?"

I nod my head again. "I was. They were looking for another permanent, I guess. Funny that they adopted me, as old as I am, but they did." I explain to her although I don't totally understand it myself.

"so you didn't do anything awful to get put in the house did you?" she looks at me with wide eyes. The house is a place where troubled boys like me get sent. For different reasons, but none of them good. You have to be pretty bad to be put in the house and I guess Andie knows this.

"nope," I say, which is a lie. They did officially adopt me. But they did so because I have done a lot of things wrong.  Things I don't want to follow me to America.

Naomi and Darren are obsessed with trying to make good people out of us. It's a full time job, taking care of us eight boys and keeping us out of trouble in our new school.

"so, because you aren't really a part of the house, that's why you're allowed to drive then.." Andie trails off, her face confused.

I hadn't thought about that, but I assume that's why. Naomi and Darren had no care in the world when I asked if I could drive their old red car to school every day. As long as none of my brothers came along, they said. They're afraid that if we get together we'll come up with a plan to do something bad. As if we didn't have enough time to think of awful things to do while we were at home. I suppose the car is transportation though. I shut myself up, trying hard to concentrate on the conversation. "yeah," I say like I know.

I stand up, gathering my stuff and wanting to be done with the conversation now. I don't want to slip up and tell Andie something that would show who I've been in the past. "do you want a ride to school tomorrow?" I ask her, hoping she'll say yes.

"sure," she says, smiling a little bit.

Her teeth are so perfect and I stare for a moment before replying, "ok. See you in the morning." I'm out the door in a couple of seconds and on my way to The House.

***
Andie.

I sit alone at the table for a few minutes, thinking about how Arden lives in the house. I had totally forgotten that the house kids were my neighbors when I found out Arden was too. I sigh, getting up. I didn't have any other homework, so I guess I'll get to work cooking dinner.

My mom doesn't come home in time for dinner, so i set a portion in the fridge for her. She's a nurse and is always working screwy hours.  Maddie and I eat our spaghetti though and have a good time doing it.
"did you have fun a school today?" I asked her, like my mom would if she were here.

"we made elephants out of clay in art today! It was totally awesome!!" Her eyes light up just thinking about it.

"cool," I say, remembering when I did that it elementary school. "when do you get to bring it home?"
"I named him Rocky," she says. "I don't know when I get to bring him home yet."

"cool," I say again, getting up to rinse my plate. She goes to copy me but I stop her, saying, "you need to finish what I gave you. You didn't even have a snack after school today." she turns around and goes back to the table, obediently eating the rest of her spaghetti while I do the dishes.

After dinner, I get online to check my facebook, feeling a little lonely since my mother isn't home yet. Everyone I don't feel like talking to is on, so I creep around facebook, looking to see if Arden has one. I don't know his last name, so I scroll through the list of Ardens looking for one that looks like him, and is British.

I'm surprised to finally find him, and his profile is public! I look through his photos surprised to find almost all of them being with a different girl. A few of them are kissing photos, which disturb me. And one is of four girls kissing Arden at once. I click out of his pictures and move on to his information, which doesn't surprise me after those photos.

He likes to party. He likes to drink. On his wall there's posts from months ago about him getting drunk, or going to a big party with this Katey girl, who is tagged in a lot of his photos. She's pretty, with long dark brown hair and brown eyes.

I sigh and click off, going back to the home page to see what else is going on. I feel like a total creeper but I'm glad I found those things out about him. I have a feeling he's not been telling the complete truth about everything but I won't bring this up. I'll see what kind of person he is after a while, whether he feels guilty for not telling me, or not. After all, I've only known him for a day. I can't expect him to spill his guts about everything. Just like I'm not willing to tell him my life story, I think.

Its an average night, except my mom doesn't come home, and by nine o'clock, I'm going to bed because of boredom and loneliness. Madison spent the whole night in her room, watching cartoons, so she didn't even entertain me. Before I lay down, I open my curtain again like I did the night before. Arden's is closed. I couldn't figure he'd look at the same time as me anyway, so I just lay down and read my favorite book before going to sleep.