His Sister

My eyelids are heavy as I stare blankly at my ceiling. I've been contemplating for the past few hours if I should actually look through Daniel's account or leave it be. After all, what if Alina finds out? What if she thinks I'm overprotective or jealous? But I still can't get that picture and all of my questions out of my mind. I roll over onto my side and check the time, ten minutes till midnight. Ten minutes till Alina and I turn sixteen. I'm not going to have any energy for our party tomorrow if I don't get any sleep tonight, and I'd rather be in a good mood on our birthday, for Alina. She doesn't deserve to deal with me in a bad mood when both of us are supposed to be happy. But I can't sleep. My mind is reeling, and I have the feeling that unless I do the research then I won't be able to sleep.

"Fuck it," I mumble to myself as I grab hold of my phone, the bright light blinding me. I promptly open Instagram and go back to the message that I've sent myself on Alina's phone, it seems that she too has stayed up late. She was active just five minutes ago. I shouldn't message her, it's best for her to get as much sleep as possible. I click on Daniel's profile and go back to tagged in, immediately finding the picture of that girl. I read her caption but only find some inspirational message. Next up, her profile. There's nothing special, in fact, the picture with Daniel seems to be the most revealing one on her account. Her account is pretty big, just past ten thousand followers, almost a hundred posts, and a little over two hundred following.

Her caption reads, 'Arora Akello, 16, I'm underage so f off creeps!' Oh, so she's his sister. Though that picture does seem a bit close for siblings, I guess that they must be pretty close. Honestly, I like her bio too, after all, her account is public and with that bikini picture online she must get a lot of messages from creepy old dudes. I continue scrolling down and find that she seems to be more creative than her brother. She has posts of her artwork, and even a few reels with a timelapse of her making some pieces too. They're beautiful too, she truly is talented. There's also quite a few pictures of her hugging her dog here as well. She has amazing dark skin and in every picture I can find her hair is different. She has a beautiful smile and I'm in complete awe as I go deeper into her profile, eventually finding a picture from four years ago. It's one that her parents must've taken. Her and Daniel are holding a puppy, that doesn't look like a pitbull, and standing next to each other in front of a tree. She looks adorable, wearing a little pink dress with purple swirls all over it, and her hair is braided into a crown-like style.

I shake my head, reminding myself that I'm fifteen and looking at a twelve-year-olds picture. Though she is sixteen now, it's still weird. "Well, I guess that there really wasn't anything to worry about." Closing down the app, I shut off my phone and roll back over to my side. Mind now reeling about a different topic, her face from her pictures flowing through my thoughts. How could I possibly not notice her around my school? After all, she has pictures taken inside our school and I even saw myself in the background of one of them. Fuck my hair really was a mess in that picture. I should really get it done. But still, how could a girl of her beauty possibly go under my radar? Is it because I've always been so focused on Alina? No, there's no way. But is it? After all, all of the other girls I've seen are nothing compared to Alina. So maybe it is possible that I've been too busy focusing on Alina. Maybe I should broaden my friend groups, talk to more girls, and finally get myself a girlfriend. Who knows, maybe I'll end up dating Arora while Alina dates Daniel. That'll certainly be an interesting relationship. Though I should at least get to know the girl first before I start dating her, after all, she and I may not have anything alike. In fact, there's even the chance that she's an absolute bitch. So I shouldn't get too ahead of myself.

Finally, my mind calms down and my eyes drift shut. Only the occasional voices outside keeping me up, teenagers staying out late. That's the kind of life Alina wants, but she's too anxious to do so and she doesn't have any friends that are close enough that would invite her to do stuff like that. I would do that stuff, but I'd rather not. There are too many homeless and dangerous people out at night. Plus what would we even do? Majority of the stores are closed, and I don't really see much point in staying out late. Plus it's freezing and things will only get colder at night, so I highly doubt that we'll just be walking around and checking out graffiti on bridges. But whatever, maybe I'm just too boring to see much excitement in it. Maybe she wants to go to parties. After all, she really did like highschool movies growing up. Pool parties, alcohol, drama, and clicks. Real life is nothing like the movies. Barely anyone goes to parties since they're so exclusive. Only the teens with chill parents can get their hands on alcohol, and even then it'll still be a small amount. Nobody in highschool really cares about drama, other than freshman, and there's no such thing as clicks. People hangout with people they already know and eventually gravitate to other groups because of what classes they're in. There's no such thing as being popular in highschool, since a majority of the students just want to finish school, go home, and sleep. Nobody cares about anything except finishing their days. I swear, it annoys me so much whenever I see a freshman that thinks they're all that just because they can shoot a basketball and some people knew them in middle school.

Whatever, there is no point in me thinking so much about this.