AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I giggle like a child, wiping the foggy bathroom mirror. My hair is wrapped in my damp towel and I put on my sky-blue dress. Behind the door, I hear the relentless, deep, and terribly annoyed voice of Nolan.
“Move your ass, Scar, damn it! Two hours for a shower, no shit?”
“I’m going out,” I lie as I free my hair to run the brush through.
My soaked hair drips down my bare shoulders. I hold back a laugh as a fist slams into the wood of the door again. At this rate, it won’t last long. First me at the start of the week, now mister-do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do. He slept two evenings in a row with his girlfriend, two evenings where there were three of us instead of four. Two evenings not to think about it. Try not to feel anything. It was there, my good resolution. I congratulate myself for having hidden my crush on him for all these years. I’ve come close to letting him know countless times.
I told my brother first, because I get along with him so well and he knows Nolan better than anyone. Then to Leo, because even if he plays the idiot on duty, he has always given good advice and is really adorable with me. Finally, to him, because I was less and less able to pretend that his presence didn’t trouble me. Yet I kept silent. I aroused no suspicion. Never. And that’s fine, especially now that I’ve decided to move on. I know that if one day he finds out, that will fuck up our lives.
“Scarlett, I swear to God, if you don’t come out of that bathroom, I’m going to break down the door.”
“Scar, you’re not alone!”
Leo’s calm voice makes me sigh. The goal was to piss off Nolan, who on Monday pissed me off with his three-quartersof an hour shower. Not to gang up the whole house against me. I put my brush down, letting my hair take on a slightly wavy shape from the humidity, then grab all my stuff lying around. I open the door and come face to face with a face flushed with anger.
“All that for this?” snaps Nolan, screening me.
“Shut up! You’ll judge when you have a better face than the one you wake up with!”
Even if he looks great when he gets out of bed—not that I’ve noticed it in the last few days since he was never there—this morning he looks particularly tired. If we remove the irritation that distorts his features.
“The bathroom is all yours,” I taunt, as I walk by.
Leo and Edgar are next door and can’t help but giggle. They don’t have class today, and while Nolan has class this morning, I have a slightly busier schedule. And after the insomnia I had, I really needed an endless shower.
“We’re really going to have to add a new rule,” grumbles Nolan, entering the room still steamy from the heat. “This has to stop, I’m telling you!”
“We’ll add a rule when you respect them,” I tell him casually. “Monday too, I needed to wash.”
“Super mature, Scar. So, this is how it’s going to be? As soon as I do something that annoys the princess, you’re going to do it twice as bad? You’re such a child.”
My brow furrows and I glare at him. If he hadn’t already trashed my self-respect in the last few days, he just added insult to injury. I mentally congratulate myself for having taken this radical decision to relegate him to the status of a brother.
“It’s ok, man, you have the shower now, no need to be unpleasant.”
My brother walks down the hallway to stand behind me and reach his bedroom door. Nolan still hadn’t taken possession ofthe bathroom and stood in the doorway, arms folded and eyes proud.
He didn’t need to shower that much.
“It’s not just that that needs to be changed,” he continues in a dry voice. “Nights like the one I just spent, it’s no longer possible.”
He watches me silently and everyone turns to me. My insomnia isn’t new, all it takes is a rise in stress, my menstruation, a little overwork, or a few changes in my life for my sleep to slip away. Even though I’m dead tired, as soon as I lie down on a bed, I toss and turn on it in vain. The current period is favorable: my return, the start of the school year, this living situation… Nolan.
“You don’t take pills anymore?” wonders my brother.
“No. They knock me out too much in the morning.”
“Whatknocks me outis not being able to rest because your damn bed bangs against my wall as soon as you move.”
“A squeaky bed? Really, Jones? I thought you loved it when it made noise!”
Nolan sketches a laugh at Leo’s far from delicate joke. I tense up.
“You just have to put earplugs. I’m not going to apologize for not being able to sleep,” I get annoyed. “Now, if you’re going to spend the morning bothering me for a few hours of sleep, all you have to do is go sleepover at your girlfriend’s house.”
All pairs of eyes fall on me and Nolan’s dark gaze captures all my attention. He’s both surprised by my attack and furious because I openly encourage him to leave this apartment.
“Besides,” I say, before he can respond, “you pissed me off about a bathroom and you just spent ten minutes giving me the headache. Am I the immature kid? It’s the kids who have tantrums, Nolan, and you’ve clearly just had one for a shower you still haven’t taken.”
