Carter threw an old, ratty, black sweatshirt at Zac. "Here. This is yours."
Zac lifted the sweatshirt from the top of his head and looked up from his homework. "Huh?"
"I borrowed it last year. It's yours."
"Oh." Zac put his pencil down on his bed and focused all of his attention onto Carter. "Are you mad at me?"
"No. Why would I be?"
"I dunno. Yesterday when you came over you went up to Taylor's room. You were up there for like, 6 hours. You hate Taylor. How come you didn't hang out with me and Nique?"
"Because there was a stalker on the front porch and you didn't give a shit."
Zac gave her a funny look. "You mean Todd?"
"Yeah."
"What about him."
Carter let out a frustrated shriek. "I tried to tell you yesterday but you were too busy poking Nique. That's why I went upstairs."
"Oh." Zac looked back down at his paper. He didn't apologize, he didn't frown. He just pulled the black sweatshirt over his head and went back to his homework. He didn't know what to say.
Carter sighed and went upstairs. Zac never noticed her limping. She turned the corner to go into Taylor's room and laughed. She couldn't see him. All she could hear was him rapping along with the song, "Will2K." She turned the corner and sat down on his bed. She started to rap along with him.
Taylor turned around and blushed more than she had ever seen him blush before. "I uh..." He stuttered as he slammed his hand onto his stereo to turn it off.
"Tay hunny, I hate to say this, but you're the whitest white boy I've ever seen."
"Did you just come up here to make fun of me?"
Carter shook her head and slid off of his bed. Then she sat down on the floor. "Your brother is pissing me off."
"But he's upstairs in his room." Taylor gestered towards the attic door, confused.
"No, the other one."
"Zac? You're mad at him? You've never been mad at him."
Carter sighed. "I'm not... mad at him. He's just pissing me off. It's like he's not interested in me anymore."
"Interested in you how?"
"I don't know." Carter shrugged.
Taylor sat down on the bed and looked down at her foot. "What's that thing?" He asked, referring to an ace bandage that was showing through her sandles. Carter wore platform sandles all through the year. Even when it was freezing or raining outside. She figured that's what socks were for.
"I broke my foot again. Too close to the toes for a cast."
"You did that last year too. Doing cartwheels in the yard."
"Yeah but this time I was just standing there in the living room watching the preview channel, waiting to see when Odd Man Out was going to be on. Because as you well know, Erik Von Detten and Trever Fehrman are hot as hell..."
"Uhm, yeah."
"Anyway, I just kinda fell over and my foot went crunch." She shrugged.
"That's it?"
"Yeah. I got lucky. Last week I found out it wasn't on because of stupid Regis and Who Wants to be a Fricking Millionaire. I kicked the tv and had to go Erikless for a week. It was tragic."
Taylor blinked and laid down on this bed, staring at the ceiling. "Is this the kind of stuff you talk to Zac about?"
Carter nodded and sat back down on the bed, facing Taylor. "Yeah. Is this what you do all day? Lay here and look at the ceiling?"
"I'm counting."
"Counting what?"
"Little dots."
"Ookay. That's one way that you're a lot like your brother. You're weird. But other than that, you're nothing like him."
"I'm not?"
"Yeah, you don't have as much self confidence."
"I do too. I'm very fond of myself."
Carter laughed. "You are not. That's why you wear those skin tight shirts and the nut huggers."
"I don't follow."
"See," Carter took a deep breath, "You're not comfortable with yourself at all, which is why you have to go around looking all hot. Cause you think people will like you more if they see the hotness in you. Which isn't true because even when you were a little kid you still had friends. So people do like you. You just try to bring out the hot so that people notice you more. When I can sit here and see you in a pair of old jeans and a white shirt, which by the way is still too tight, and I can see you, and know who you are. I don't just see your pecs and your ass and think, 'Whoa he's hot', and then want to sit down and be your friend."
"You think I'm hot?"
"Dammit Tay! You missed my point."
"There was a point there mixed in with all that 'I want you're body, Tay, do me now' stuff?"
Carter grabbed a pillow a smacked it down on his face. "Shut up!"
Taylor laughed at her and put the pillow underneathe his head. He looked down at his chest. "This shirt isn't that tight."
Carter rolled her eyes. "Yeah right, you can count your ab muscles."
"I have ab muscles?"
"Dammit Tay, shut up, you know you do."
"Yeah I am pretty hot, aren't I?"
Carter smacked him in the stomach. "See now look what I did. I gave you confidence and now you're a pain in the ass."
"I'm sorry, but one little mind numbing rift of yours isn't going to make me like myself anymore. It's just going to make me think you're even more insane that I thought you were."
Carter smacked him again. "Shut up. Don't make me go back downstairs with Zac."
"Go ahead, see if I care."
Carter shrugged and stood up. She headed for the door, but Taylor grabbed her arm and pulled her back down onto his bed. She landed with the back of her head on his chest.
"Don't go!"
"Huh?"
Taylor blushed. "Because Zac will piss you off again and then you'll come back up here and bitch and moan about it for another hour." He laughed. "And you're a pain in the ass when you're being a bitch."
Carter lifted her arm up and smacked him on the forehead. "Shut up, you."
"Ow."
Carter laid like that for a while, with her head on his chest. For the next hour, they laid on his bed, counting the dots on the ceiling.