Chapter Text
“I’m in love, Andy!” Joe said, wistfully flinging himself on his sister’s bed.
“Took you long enough. It’s been a full two days since school started and you’re only just now in love? I think that’s a new record,” Andy said sarcastically before dodging a pillow hurled at her head. “Who is it this time?”
“His name is Niccolo,” Joe sighed dreamily. “He’s new. He’s Italian.”
“Sounds romantic. How many times have you spoken exactly?” Andy smirked and ducked- he was going to run out of pillows at some point. Her brother was always ‘in love’ with someone. To some end, Andy admired him for it-- it had taken her years of having a crush on Quynh to finally get her head out of her ass and make any sort of move. But unlike her, Joe was naturally affectionate, always open for anything it seemed. Still, Joe was also her little brother and one thing she learned quickly about having a much more extraverted, much more ‘romance driven’ little brother is that opening your heart is the way for it to get broken. Andy would’ve thought after all the relationships that ended poorly, at some point, Joe would stop. She thought he’d eventually say ‘screw it all’ and take a page out of Andy’s book and close himself off from the world for a while. But that’s not Joe. Joe is an optimist. Joe can see the worst sides of people and still love them somehow. Andy is grateful for that, no doubt, but she always has this nagging feeling in the back of her head- “This is it. This is the one that’s going to break him.”
“We’ve spoken multiple times!” he said with mock offense. “He’s in my Chem class AND he sat next to me in English. Should I learn Italian? I mean I’m already at least conversational in French so it shouldn’t be too hard…”
“Maybe wait until your third conversation before you make any major life decisions,” Andy quipped. Joe just rolled his eyes, and turned over on his side, propping his head up on his elbow.
“Fine. How was your second day of senior year, Ms. ‘I don’t want to hear about my future brother-in-law’?” Joe asked, feigning innocence even though they both knew damn well that Andy would rather talk about literally anything else. She was just riding this thing out til college. Her girlfriend, the one thing left worth going to school for, was now living across the country, and Andy was already sick of all the talk about “you seniors are now the leaders of the school” and “you have to set a good example for the younger kids.” She wondered what the teachers thought happened over the summer that made them go from being “kids” to being “leaders.”
“It sucked ass, what else would you think?” she responded.
“How’s Steven?” Joe asked, purposely calling Mr. Merrick by his first name. “Still an asshole?” Somehow Andy had gotten trapped in the quicksand that is Merrick’s advisory, the more you struggle the more you get pulled in. He lived for trying to get people that hated school to actually care which meant Andy was like his white whale. On top of that, Merrick was the “head of high school” which meant he cherished advisory as it was the only part of his job that actually meant dealing with students. “As bad as ever,” she grimaced. “If not worse.”
“How’s Quynh? She started school a couple days ago too, didn’t she?” Joe asked, knowing that if nothing else, Andy would perk up at the thought of Quynh.
“She’s fine,” Andy said, picking up her phone, probably to text Quynh. “You know, she’s always been more involved than me. I don’t know how we’re gonna get anything done in the GSA this year without her. I’m honestly kinda worried about it.”
“Oh riiiiight,” Joe smirked. “You’re like ~in charge~ in charge this year. That’ll be fun to watch.” Now it was Andy’s turn to throw a pillow at him.
Andy woke up the next day to her phone buzzing every other second. She groaned and turned over before being momentarily blinded by the light of her phone. It was 6:55. She cursed whoever denied her that last few minutes of sleep. The last few text messages were from Quynh, who she could never stay mad at long, but the first one almost made her get out of bed to murder her brother.
joe 6:48 AM
uhhh i may or may not have texted quynh about how your not sure what to do about gsa without her :///
dont kill me pls 😭
quynh <3 6:51 AM
A little birdy told me you’re nervous about the GSA without me this year
Don’t kill him. I think it’s sweet :)
You’re gonna be fine babe
She rolled her eyes at Joe and sent a quick response to Quynh which involved more emoji hearts than she would care to admit. She stumbled down the hallway to the kitchen where she found a travel coffee mug all filled up and ready to go with a post it note on the side. The note simply said “Don’t murder your brother ❤ Mom.” She rolled her eyes fondly; she was used to being the only person in the house who wasn’t a morning person. Their mom got up for work early, and Joe was always there chatting chirpily to her while she packed her lunch. Andy got dressed relatively quickly before standing in Joe’s doorway and yelling at him for a solid minute before he finally took out his earbuds and looked up from his sketchbook.
“Hey, asshole, your ride’s about to leave,” she said, shaking her keys in front of him as he gave her an over-exaggerated frown.
As they got in the car, Andy flipped to her “piss off Joe” playlist on Spotify, just to give him a little Hell for ratting her out, and they pulled out of the driveway to the dulcet sounds of “Istanbul (Not Constantinople).” At some point, Joe put his earbuds in to try to drown out Andy’s horrible taste in music. Naturally, Andy turned the volume up on the car radio in response. This cycle went on for a while, and by the time they pulled into their parking spot about a block away, Andy was playing “Waterloo” by ABBA at top volume while Joe destroyed his eardrums by playing Frank Ocean as loud as his earbuds and phone would let him.
They got out of the car far angrier than they should be while they both now had a substantially greater chance of needing hearing aids later on in life than they were before. Joe was silently fuming when he felt an arm bump into his.
“Waterloo? Really?” Booker asked sarcastically.
“Believe me,” Joe grimaced, staring daggers into the back of Andy’s head. “Not my choice.”
“What did you do?” Joe looked at him, face twisting into a confused knot. “If ~Andy~ is listening to ~ABBA~, she’s definitely mad at you.”
“I just texted her girlfriend,” Joe said innocently. Booker just lifted an eyebrow. “Fine, I kinda told Quynh that Andy was nervous about something-”
“Oof, can’t show any signs of weakness,” Booker shook his head. “Older sibling 101.” He nodded his head behind him to his 3 brothers, the oldest of whom was a freshman and already, in Joe’s opinion kind, of obnoxious. His youngest brother was a pretty sweet kid, but he absolutely despised Booker for a reason that Joe couldn’t pick up on. Now that Joe thought about it he wasn’t 100% sure that it was entirely legal for a junior in high school to drive around that many children.
“You sound like a grumpy, old man,” Joe shoved him lightly.
“I am at heart,” Booker responded solemnly, making Joe roll his eyes. “What class do you have first?’ By the end of the year, they would definitely have each other’s schedules memorized, but on the third day of school, they barely knew what class they were going to when they walked in the door.
“Uhhhhhh,” Joe pulled out his phone. “Chem,” he said it pretty casually but shortly after his eyes widened for a second and he made a little happy face.
“Oh,” Booker interrupted. “I know that face.”
“What face? I wasn’t making a face.”
“You like someone in your class!”
“No I don’t,” Joe glared at him.
“His name is Nicolo. He’s new, and he’s ~Italian~!” Andy shouted back at them, mocking Joe’s voice, as they approached the school, making Booker double over with laughter.
“I’m going to skin you, Andromache!” Joe yelled at her.