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“Guess it’s back to the drawing board on nicknames for Lars,” Shane sighs.
“I don’t need a nickname,” Lars grumbles as he opens the refrigerator.
“Of course you do!” Shane replies. “We all have to have nicknames.”
“No one else does,” Liam counters.
“Yeah, because I need to think of Lars’s first. He’s the hardest.”
I laugh, rolling my eyes as I settle in the couch that isn’t taken up by Zoey and Liam’s still horizontal bodies, next to Shane.
“Oh, what the fuck!” Lars growls from the kitchen, rooting around the refrigerator.
“What’s wrong?” I call to him.
He slams the refrigerator door and turns towards us. “Who ate my eggs?”
The guilty look on Shane’s face answers that.
“Oh, those were yours?” Shane begins, his boisterous voice now tiny with guilt. “I thought they were, like … communal eggs.”
Lars’s nostrils flare. “I guess you missed the way I wrote my name on the carton with a big fucking black marker?”
A nervous laugh squeaks out of Shane as he rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah. Guess so.”
Lars shakes his head as he walks out of the kitchen. “Un-fucking-believable,” he grumbles.
“Hey, Lars, why don’t you join us?” I invite. “We were about to play some NHL ’24.” Shane and I talked about playing it on the way back from Jake’s, and I really need to try to get Lars to spend more time with the rest of us. He’s a loner by nature, but I feel like we won’t be able to function well on the ice if one of us is alienated from the rest of the group socially.
“Can’t,” Lars growls. “Need to go egg shopping.” The next thing we hear is the slamming front door as he stomps out.
“How many of his eggs did you eat, dude?” Liam asks. “I noticed the carton in there yesterday and it had, like, eight eggs left in it.”
“I was hungry,” Shane says sheepishly.
I sigh. “I’m sure Lars’ll come around. Takes some people time to open up.”
I pick up the X-Box controller to turn on the game just as Aaron walks down the stairs, yawning.
“I was taking a nap,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “Was I dreaming, or did Lars just yell something about eggs?”
9
PHOEBE
Isettle down at a table in the library with a big cup of coffee and open my laptop.
After that killer of a Biology quiz I just got finished with, I’d like to veg out and relax before my next class in two hours. But I need to finally start this essay I have due for my British Literature class.
The way I’m feeling today, I know that if I wait until I got home later this afternoon, it’s not getting started today. And itneedsto get started today.
I stare at the blank Word document in front of me for about ten straight minutes.
I actually like writing essays, but I hate starting them.
Once I’m able to type out the first couple sentences and feel confident about them, the rest of the essay usually flows out almost effortlessly, my fingers moving over the keyboard so fast that it feels like they’re typing the next word before it’s even formed in my mind.
Figuring out what those first couple introductory sentences should be, though, has always felt like pulling teeth.
