My Undercover Life

Episode 17

“H-how—”
“—did I know?” The smile on her face got even wider as she spoke, almost like she was enjoying the power she had over me. I was only able to nod, unable to speak.
“Lily’s last name is Ace, isn’t it?”
I nodded again, praying to God my cousins would do something—anything and come save me. But in the back of my mind, I knew that that wasn’t going to happen. It would look too suspicious if two guys barged in out of no where.
She shrugged, rolling her shoulders upwards. “Everyone knows the Ace’s family in this town. You’ll have to be an idiot not to know them.” She laughed, her voice—soft and angelic. “Plus, I’d seen you with your siblings before. Even though that was a few years ago—”

“—then how?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Your bone structure,” she pointed out. “Even though you changed your outer appearance, you didn’t exactly change your face with plastic surgery. It took me awhile, but then it finally hit me,” she said, ecstatically. “No wonder why you looked so familiar when I first saw you.”
I was tongue-tied. This girl—she’s deadly smart. I’d thought my disguise was foolproof! How the hell was I suppose to know that my d–n bone structure looked the same as it did years back?
“—I-I um, I—” I tried to say, but ended up stuttering, beyond petrified to come up with a full coherent sentence.
“Oh my gosh,” she exclaimed, blowing out an exasperated breath. Running her fingers through her midnight-colored hair, her baby blue eyes stared up at me. “Please stop staring at me with that frightened look on your face. It makes me feel so uneasy!” She shivered, shaking her body like a ghost had went through her. “I’m not even going to tell anyone anyways, so rest assured.”

I blinked, feeling my eyelashes fluttered closed. “Wait—huh?”
She giggled, seeing the baffled look probably on my face. “Like I said, I’m not exactly sure why you’re doing this, but as long as you’re not doing it for the wrong reasons, who am I to tell you what to do?”
My eyes widened further, almost bulging out of my sockets. Feeling my pounding heart-rate slowing down, the moisture started coming back to my tongue, as the wet feeling started evaporating from my sweaty palms.
“S-seriously?” I dared asked.
“Lily, I’m being a serious here.” She gave me a genuine smile, as she said my name. “But don’t forget—” Her eyes cut, “—don’t hurt my brothers. If you do, I will hurt you ten folds.” Seeing the threatening glare on her face, I knew she wasn’t joking.

I couldn’t help but smile, knowing that she really cares about her siblings. Something I could relate to, since I would do anything for my brother John and my sister Isabella.
“You seem to really love them.”
“I do.” She grinned, as I saw the pure spark of happiness in her light eyes. “Hunter may be a jerk sometimes, but he’s still my older brother, you know? And I know he loves me. He just shows it in an unique kind of way. And Bradlee. He’s my rock,” she confessed, as I saw the love in her eyes mixed with a hint of sorrow. “I just wish more people would stop treating him like some gross plague when they figure out he has a hearing loss.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember when I told you, he already has a lifetime of heartache?”
“Yeah?”
“I shouldn’t be telling you this,” she started out saying, looking conflicted, “but let’s just say someone he used to really cared about treated him like dirt when he finally decided to tell that person about his hearing loss.”
“What?” My voice rose up an octave, my fury consuming me with rage. “What the f–k is wrong with them!?”

She chuckled, probably at my reaction. “A lot of things. But don’t worry about it,” she said a moment after. “It’s all in the past. Just don’t disappoint him.”
“Disap—”

“Don’t worry,” she cut me off, laughing quietly. Something tells me she knows something she shouldn’t have. “You’ll find out sooner or later,” she said before she turned her body around, and started walking down the hallway, her high heels, clicking away before they stopped all together. Hearing the creak of a door opening, and then a slam right afterwards, I knew she wasn’t coming back.
I stayed there, just staring at the white-coated walls filled with Art Nouveau paintings before I finally decided to move, her words still clearly in my head. But when I’d walked inside Hunter’s room, my jaw literally dropped to the floor at all the Taylor Swift posters in his room. I was only able to catch a glance at the giant one right above his bed-frame, but now that I was actually standing in his room, the whole wall adjacent to his bed, was full of Taylor Swift stuff. And then on the other side of the wall, holds his trophies and awards he had won. Seeing his jersey’s number on the wall, I figured they were all from basketball games.
“So what did my sister want to talk to you about?” he asked nonchalantly, laying on his bed. It looked like he was reading a magazine of some sort, but there wasn’t any noticeable pictures, so I wasn’t quite sure.
“Oh nothing much.” I shrugged. “Just girl stuff.”

“Right,” he drawled out, nodding his head. His eyes then went to the glass window to his left. Motioning his hand towards the black leathered couch underneath that window, the smile on his face widened. “Why don’t you take a seat instead of just standing there? Make yourself comfortable.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” I laughed, heading over to his couch, and took a seat right across from him.
Getting up from his laying-down position, he sat-crossed legged on his mix-matched sheets. “You know, you’re the first girl to ever see the inside of my room, besides my family of course.”
“Really now?” I asked, skeptical. “Didn’t Ailee said something about you banging your female friends and whoring yourself out earlier?”
“Oh that.” He waved a hand at me. “She’s joking. I honestly never even had sex before.”
“You’re a virgin?” I asked, astonished.
He chuckled—loud and throaty. “Is that so hard to imagine?”
“Kind of,” I told him truthfully. “I didn’t exactly peg you as the virgin type.”
“Yeah, well you’re not the only one. Everyone just thinks I’m some stupid jock—” He paused, clenching his hands in tight fists, “—who’s willing to bang anyone with a pair of legs, and a set of b—–s. You’re actually the first person who I’d met who didn’t coward away from me when I’d leashed out on you,” he said, guilt flashing his eyes. “That’s why I like you, you’re different from all the other girls at Woodway.”
“Um . . .” I began not knowing what to say to that. In the end, I finally managed to get out a, “thank you.”
“No, thank you for being you, Avery.” He smiled wide. “And between you and me, I had this fantasy since I was fourteen that once the right girl comes along, I’ll swept her off her feet with my charismatic charm. We’ll date, fall in love, get married, and during our honeymoon, I’ll surprise her with a gorgeous hotel room, with some rose petals, lit candles, and her favorite chocolate. Then when she’s ready, I’ll do my best and make sure she knows how much I truly love her. I’ll—”
Drowning the rest of his sentence out, I couldn’t help but think. He sounded so sincere, so thoughtful, that I knew this was something special to him. Something he would never give up, even if you held a gun to his head. He truly wants to save himself for the one girl he will forever love in this world. And if that was the case, there’s no way he’ll go around raping those innocent girls, and then killing them afterwards.

“—Avery?”

Seeing a flash of his hand, I came back to reality, trying to recall what he had just said. “Ah, yeah?”
“You were making a weird face,” he said, his voice etched with concern. “What were you even thinking about?”
“Oh nothing much.” I giggled—a nervous habit of mine. “I was just thinking about—how much we’re gonna have to study in order to prepare you for your test on Monday.”
“Hey!” he shouted, his full body leaning forward. “At least I know how to pronounce monohybrids now!”

I rolled my eyes, laughing. “Yeah after like a billion tries.”

“So?” He tilt his head to the side. “At least I finally got it, right?”
“It’s still pretty bad though . . . I mean, if it took you that long to actually know how to pronounce the word monohybrids, just think how long it would take you to get a good grasp of Genetics.”
“Then start quizzing me and find out!”
“Fine, do you have the review sheet Mr. Meyer gave you?” I asked, hopefully. If he didn’t and forgot it in his locker for the second time, I’ll just have to quiz him from memory and what I’d remembered learning when I took Biology.
“Yup!” He nodded, smiling ear-to-ear. I couldn’t help but smile along; his happiness was contagious. “Hold on, it’s in my bookbag,” he said before leaping off his bed, and ran towards his closet, where he had his bookbag thrown in the corner. For someone who’s rich, the boy didn’t have a huge closet. But then again, half of his clothes were in piles, scattered all over his floors. When he came back, he handled me the review sheet. Scanning it quickly, I decided to start off with the easiest questions first.
“Okay.” I glanced up at him. “Who was Gregor Mendel?”
“He was a scientist!” he shouted instantly.
Trying to not slap myself on the forehead, I lowered my head slowly. “Yes, but what did he do?”
“Discovered genetics?” he guessed, sounding unsure of himself.
“Kind of. He gave us the basis for understanding genetic inheritance in all living things. So, without him we wouldn’t know how genes were passed down from parents to offspring,” I explained, trying to simplified it as much as possible.
“Got it.” He gave a thumbs up. “Next question please.”
“Alright. This is an easy question. What’s an allele?” I eyed him, as I watched his face twisting up in confusion seconds after I’d asked the question.
“I thought you said this was an easy question!?”

“This is an easy question.”
“To you!” he blared, almost whining. “I don’t know the exact definition for an allele.”
“Then just tell me what you know about it.”
It took him a while, but after staring out the window for at least five minutes, he said, “they’re found on a chromosome.”
“Well, at least you’re correct about that.” I gave him a cheerful smile. “But, an allele is one of two or more alternate forms of a gene.”
“Wait!” he shouted, looking like he just made a breakthrough in something. “So pretty much the alleles are the letters. Why didn’t you just tell me that in the first place? I would’ve gotten that.”

“Right . . .” I drifted off, my tone sarcastic. “Anyways,” I started changing the subject when it looked like he was about to say something back, “let’s just jump right into the next question. What’s a phenotype?”
His eyes widened—his hand automatically going up, like it would in a classroom setting. “Oh! I know this one!”
“Great! What is it?”
“It’s the physical appearance right?”
“No actually it’s the—wait a minute.” I halted in mid-sentence. “Did you just say physical appearance?”
“Yeah, I thought I had it right until you started—”
“—no you’re correct,” I interrupted quickly before he went any further with his sentence. “Sorry, I thought you said the wrong answer for a second there.”
“Avery, you’ve got to believe in me more! I do know some stuff especially since we’d been studying for the past few days.”
“I know. I was there.” I thought back to the times where I’d literally wanted to pound my head into my desk at the questions he’d gotten wrong on. “Alright.” I glanced at the paper once more, picking his third question. Once I had the question in my head, I looked up, seeing his eager face. “This question requires you to think a bit.” Hearing a sigh coming from him, I began laughing. Once I stopped, I continued on with the question. “If both parents are homozygous, one yellow, and one green, what are the offspring’s phenotypes if yellow is the dominant trait?”
“Um, hold on, let me think about this.” Tapping his fingers on his bed, he started biting his lip, something I’d noticed he did often when he’s thinking about something hard. “Homozygous means they have the same alleles right?”
I nodded, urging him forward.
“Okay,” he said, clapping his hands together, “so if one parent is yellow and one is green, their offsprings would be yellow, wouldn’t they?”
“You’re—” I paused for dramatic effect, “—correct!”
“Really?” His eyes bugged out, his face completely and utterly jubilant. “Yes! Take that! I’m not some dumb jock!”
“No, no you’re not,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “But in order to actually get an A on this test, we need to study more. So, let’s get to the next question, shall we?”
“Can’t we take a break?” he suddenly asked, his earlier emotion gone. “We’d been studying for so long!”
I blinked. “Hunter.”
“Ah . . . Yeah?”
“It’s only been fifteen minutes since we started studying.”

“Exactly! That’s a lot longer than I’d studied on all of my other exams. So I deserve a break.” He crossed his arms across his chest stubbornly.
“You deserve nothing,” I bit back. “No wonder why you weren’t passing. You can get your break after we study for two hours.”
“Two hours!?” he shouted, almost falling off the edge of his bed. “What? B-but that’s too long!” he wailed, complaining like a small child in a toy’s store.
I ignored his plead. “Trust me, it’ll pay off in the end.”
“Fine,” he concluded afterward, his shoulders still hunched forward. “But then I get my break right?”
“Yes Hunter.”
“Alright.” He sighed. “Just give me the next question then,” he said suddenly sounding determined. I smiled, getting to work.
For the next two hours, Hunter and I studied Genetics diligently, with him every so often complaining about how bored he was, or how much he hated Genetics. I remember when we were near the one hour mark, he basically started whining like a little kid, screaming about how much he hated his life, and then he started cursing the person who ever invented exams.
After his little episode was over, we went back to studying for another hour, before he closed his books, and exclaimed, “break time!” But his happy facade was ruin when I told him he only had ten minutes before we had to pick up where we’d left off.
“What!? Why?”
“Because it’s already five o’clock, and I need to be home by six for dinner, so we have to finish reviewing the notes before my cousins comes back to pick me up.”

“Why can’t you just stay for dinner then?” he offered me. “Then we can study right after we finish.”
“I don’t know—”
“Oh come on!” he cut me off. “This way, I get my break, you get to eat dinner, and we can study longer now. It’s a win-win situation.”
“Yeah but—”
“—Come on Avery!” he started begging, getting down on his knees. “Stay for dinner. Bradlee’s cooking tonight and he makes delicious dishes,” he said, bribing me.
I bit my lips. “I’m not really sure—”
“If you’re worried about meeting my parents or something, they won’t be back until way later. So it’ll just be the four of us.”
“Alright fine,” I said after going over the pros and cons. In the ned the pros won. Hunter was right. It was a win-win situation. Before he could get too excited over it, I added afterwards, “but only if you’re using dinner as your break. Because we need to start studying by six.”
“Deal! I’ll text Bradlee to start making dinner and then we can head downstairs!”
I lowered my head in a nod, as I watched him fish out his phone from his back pocket, tapping in his password before he probably went to his message icon to text his brother. Even though I was in front of Hunter, all I could think about was being face to face with Bradlee in a couple of minutes, not having a clue if he knows my true identity or not.