Joan

Chapter VI

"Joan?"

His head whips over in my direction at the sound of my voice. His WTH face matches mine and we're both locked in a staring contest until we finally realize this isn't a trick of our minds.

Brent's actually here!

"What the-"

We meet each other halfway before colliding. We're too shocked to embrace each other- not that we would under any other circumstances (plus, he's wet- must've fallen in that same pond I did).

I finally get my words out. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you," He replies in disbelief.

"You first," I beat him to the chase, giving him a smug smile as he sighs.

"Fine, but I promise I'm not sniffing glue," He takes a dramatic pause, glances around, then sighs again. "So, I woke up this morning and I kept hearing your voice, like in my head- it was freaky-"

I arch a questioning brow but he's already stopping my thoughts from spilling out.

"I swear I'm not on anything, I swear-"

"You sure-"

"Yes."

Brent's not one to fabricate things so there has to be some truth to this, however out there it sounds.

He continues. "Yeah, so I'm hearing your loud, obnoxious voice in my head all morning and that's not how I want to spend my day, no offense, so I thought about taking some aspirin or something to drown you out-"

"-yet claims he's not high on anything right now-"

"-but then dad woke up and he'd be suspicious if he saw me trying to get into the medicine because then he would ask why I would need some and I was kind of already feeling like I was losing it so, yeah, I said screw it and didn't take anything. You did shut up for a little bit but then you starting talking again and I couldn't get you out. Also, could you not talk about your tits for a day- it's kind of weird listening to you in my head talk about them."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," This has officially switched into the Twilight Zone now. "You overheard my conversation from last night?"

"Last night? What are you-"

"I was talking to Marlowe last night and that was exactly what we talked about."

He's giving me that "really now" look. "First off, who's Marlowe? Secondly, why are you always talking about your boobs? No one cares but you."

After my immature bout of sticking out my tongue, I address him by turning to find Marlowe, but it seems the girl and her brother have grown shy. They linger by the store they purchased meal from.

"She's over there," I point. "Come on."

As I lead him over to the duo, they stare at my brother in silent questioning- like they're not quite sure what to expect from him.

"Guys, this is my little brother, Brent."

"Only younger than her in age."

I jab him to which he zealously returns the gesture.

The poor things, they don't know how to perceive our rough, brotherly-sisterly affection- even Marlowe looks at a loss.

"This is Marlowe and Oslen."

"It's nice to meet you," Oslen replies, all diplomatic and such.

Brent isn't aware of how alienlike these people are that are judging us so he automatically launches into his usual stint as if we're at home. No time for them to even adjust to his level.