Misunderstood (Neighbor from Hell (YA) 1)

Definitely should have paid better attention, Mikey decided as she curled up into the fetal position and decided that it would probably be for the best if she stayed there until the high-pitched noise tearing through her head was finished. That was quickly followed by telling herself not to puke when the coach knelt down by her side and forced her to open her eyes.

She wasn’t exactly sure what he was saying to her, mostly because of that whole high-pitched noise thing that she had going on at the moment, but something, mostly the way that he was glaring down at her and the way that he was angrily biting out words, told her that it wasn’t good. That was followed by him pointing toward the bench and her opening her mouth to tell him th

at she was fine.

When he moved his lips again, more urgently this time with another angry gesture, Mikey forced herself to stumble to the bench. Ignoring the pitying look the assistant coach was sending her, she grabbed an icepack and pressed it against her head as she sat down on the bench and watched everyone else play. When she couldn’t take it any longer, she dropped the icepack on the bench and moved to get up only to end up grabbing the icepack with a sigh when the coach yelled at her to sit back down.

As she pressed the icepack back against her face and watched as Coach Dilmore told Johnny Dawkins to cover right field, something told her that she should probably get used to warming the bench.

*-*-*-*

“How are you holding up?” Aunt Kasey asked as Sebastian carefully scooped the rest of the stuffing out of the huge turkey that she’d pulled out of the oven a few minutes ago.

“Good,” he said, even though he could honestly say that he was doing better than good.

For the first time in years, things seemed to finally be going his way. He was days away from being done with his applications. His mother had managed to get a meeting with the public high school thanks to his Uncle Garret, who was a lawyer with a reputation for being ruthless. He’d stopped sneaking into the school to have lunch with Mikey, but that was okay since he usually had lunch with Aunt Haley and Mrs. Blaine now. And once he was done with his schoolwork, he got to go work for Aunt Kasey, except for Tuesdays when he went with Mrs. Blaine to another board meeting.

He wasn’t sure how this was going to end, but for right now…

He had no complaints.

Aunt Kasey was really easygoing. She told him what needed to be done and left him alone unless she needed help with something. She let him set his own hours, paid him ten bucks an hour, and let him eat all the food he could handle. It definitely beat raking leaves for his dad, Sebastian thought as he finished scooping the rest of the stuffing out of the turkey. Aunt Kasey was getting a start on her holiday cooking videos this year so that she didn’t fall behind, which meant that she was cooking a huge turkey dinner with different side-dishes every day this week.

Definitely better than raking leaves, Sebastian mused as he focused his attention on the butternut squash that needed to be mashed. He grabbed the small bowl of brown sugar that she’d set out for him and–

“What happened?” Aunt Kasey demanded, drawing his attention to find Mikey walking into the kitchen, covered in grass and dirt with a large bruise forming on the right side of her face.

“Nothing happened,” Mikey muttered, looking absolutely miserable.

“So that large bruise forming on the side of your face…”

“Is nothing,” Mikey said, dropping her bag by the door.

Sighing heavily, Aunt Kasey said, “Go clean up for dinner. It’s almost ready.”

“I’m not hungry. I just want to go to bed,” Mikey mumbled sadly as she started to pull off the sweatshirt that she stole from him only to rethink that decision when she spotted him. She let it drop back down with a grumble and slowly made her way to the living room.

“Please tell me that they didn’t bench her again,” Aunt Kasey said, shaking her head in disgust as she focused on the mashed potatoes.

“What happened last time?” Sebastian asked as he dumped the brown sugar in the butternut squash before reaching for the butter.

“I’m not sure what she told you about the team that she was on back in the Cape, but they wouldn’t let her play. The parents complained about her pitches being too dangerous, which I understood, but the coach took that as an excuse to bench Mikey instead of letting her play a different position.”

“She should be pitching,” Sebastian said, glancing back at the door that Mikey had disappeared through a minute ago, wondering if there was a way to fix this now instead of having to wait until next year.

Uncle Reese could probably have a word with the coach but…

Mikey would hate that and it would probably make things worse for her.

“Yes, she should,” Aunt Kasey murmured in agreement only to follow that up with, “The coach is the reason why Mikey wants to go to a different school next year, isn’t it?”

After a moment, he reluctantly nodded.

With a muttered, “Damn it,” Aunt Kasey shook her head in disgust.

For the next half hour, they worked quietly. Aunt Kasey looked like she was thinking something over while Sebastian was struggling to come up with a way to make this better for Mikey. While everything was finally going his way, Mikey was struggling. Every day, she got up early to practice her pitches before forcing herself to go to school and ask for extra credit that she didn’t want to do so that she could bring her grades up. She struggled to get as much homework done during lunch as she could so that she had more time to practice her pitches before she had to work on extra credit, study for the entrance exams, and complete her application essays at night, which probably wouldn’t have been a problem if it wasn’t for practice.

Every day her coach worked Mikey until she was too sore to move and by the time that she came home at night, she was exhausted and all she wanted to do was crash. But, she couldn’t. She had to help her mom with dinner, play with her brothers, finish her chores, and then spend the next few hours with him working on their applications and he honestly wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take.