He yanks his headphones down. "What?"
"Why aren't you studying?"
"I'm done."
I walk over to him. "Let me see it."
He rolls his eyes as he picks up his laptop. "We just had to write some shit for English. It wasn't a big deal."
Taking the laptop from him, I scroll down the document. "This isn't done. You ended in the middle of a sentence."
"Whatever," he says, swiping through his phone.
Grabbing the phone, I shove the laptop at him. "Finish it or I keep the phone."
He glares at me, but doesn't argue, knowing I don't put up with that shit. I go easy on him on some things, but not when it comes to school. I want him to graduate and go to college so he doesn't end up on the streets or in prison like our dad.
"Done," he says, turning the laptop to show me the screen.
"You just added a period. That doesn't make it a complete sentence."
"Then you do it," he says, falling back on the bed. "I suck at English."
"You don't suck at it. You just don't put the effort in because you don't like it. Finish the sentence or the phone is mine."
He stares at the laptop, his fingers hovering over the keys. He sighs, his eyes going to mine. "Would you help me?"
"I can try." I sit beside him on the bed. "What are you trying to say? Let's start there."
We spend the next half hour revising what he wrote. I can't write for shit so I don't know if my help made his paper any better but at least all his sentences are complete. I wish he could skip this class and just take math. The kid's a genius at math. I have no idea how that happened. I struggle with math and our parents can't even do basic addition. Jacob must've inherited the math gene from some distant relative.
"Let's go figure out dinner," I say, getting up to leave.
"What'd you get?" Jacob asks, following me to the kitchen.
"Hamburgers, cereal, bread." I chuckle. "I had to fight for the bread. This girl tried to steal it from me."
"What girl?" he asks, opening the box of cereal.
"Just some girl from my school. She's new."
"What's she look like?" Jacob asks, hopping up on the counter and digging his hand in the cereal box.
"Hey. Use a bowl. I don't even want to know where your hand's been."
He laughs. "Yeah. You don't." He pours the cereal in his hand and dumps it in his mouth. "So what's she look like? Is she hot?"
"Who?" I ask, putting the hamburger patties in a skillet on the stove.
"The new girl."
"Why do you care? She's a senior. She's too old for you."
"I like older women," he says, smiling with a mouthful of cereal.
"She wouldn't go for you. Or me, not that I'm interested. She's rich, or she used to be."
"So she only dates rich assholes."
