Chapter 1

Steph loved to observe. She had ever since she was a little girl. She loved staring at the clouds, looking at the branches of a tree moving in unison with the wind, observing how the birds landed on windowsills in the winter, accidentally clearing it from snow. She loved listening to people’s conversations in a packed subway, looking at how their facial expressions changed. She loved the smell of rain, so much that she had gotten a cold multiple times after opening her window just to smell the fresh weather outside.

She was always the first one to know what was going on. She was the one to read through a person when one was trying to hide their feelings. She never said a word if she felt like it wasn’t necessary. She preferred to be quiet and observe.

When she was a toddler, it hadn’t been easy for her parents. While her twin brother was already talking before they were eighteen months old, Steph wasn’t. She started talking only just after their third birthday, but when she did, it was like she had been doing it for years. After all that listening and everyone pronouncing words for her clearly, she was ready to express herself in a few-word sentences.

She didn’t have communicational problems. She was just a girl who preferred to be quiet—unless during the tantrums. (She could cry louder than any other kids.) Her parents, Jane and Cory, always tried to get her to talk more, but she would only giggle and try to express herself by expressions and movements, making it hard for others to understand her.

She learned to read when she was four. That gave her a lot more vocabulary which didn’t come from her older nor her twin brother. By the time she was six, she had caught up with the other kids in language skills.

The autistic spectrum disorder she had been diagnosed with at the age of two was slowly dropped by the time the twins were seven.

Being the only daughter in the house, she felt suppressed by all the boys. When she was ten years old, her fourth brother was born. And now at the age of fifteen, nose in books as always, she had six brothers: one sixteen-year-old, a fifteen-year-old, a twelve-year-old, a ten-year-old, a five-year-old, and a three-year-old. While she wouldn’t have changed the annoying boys against anything in the world, she hated not having privacy, and missed a bit of attention, too. Her brothers were older or younger than her, and she just felt stuck in the middle, having to share her room with two of them.

Chic and Nate made a YouTube channel when Steph and the latter were thirteen years old. The childish videos slowly turned into family vlogs, and the channel name changed from GamersForEverCandN to TheSmithClan. Now, with thirteen million subscribers, Steph felt like she couldn’t be at peace at school either.

#

The girl sighed in front of a mirror in their family bathroom. She was stood there in a towel, had just finished brushing her teeth, and was staring at herself in the mirror. Her pale skin matched her golden blond hair, and the fresh shower’s rosy glint was still on her neck and cheeks. As she brushed her fingers over her lips, she noted that the pink color in them brought out her eyes. Emerald green, just like always.

“Steph, I wanna pee!” Jimmy, her five-year-old brother, said from behind the door.

“Use the other one.”

“Daddy’s there.”

“Go use mom’s then,” she called back.

“Theo’s in there!”

“I’ll hurry up, try to hold it.” The blonde girl quickly swept the humid towel over her now hairless body and wrapped it around her head. She pulled on her underwear, the broken jeans, and a beige stretch shirt. As soon as she was done—even though very uncomfortable—she opened the door and let her little brother run inside.

One thing she hated about being part of a big family was the fact that their small house only had three bathrooms. It wasn’t quite enough for nine people. She sighed and pulled her socks on in the hallway before walking to her own room. Both of the boys raised their heads when she entered.

“Close the door,” Nate told her. She would’ve done it without even being told. Somewhere, Hugo, their youngest brother, was having a tantrum, and Ricky was yelling at somebody… Theo, maybe?

“You hugged the bathroom for forty-five minutes, Stephie,” he mentioned, eyes back on his phone.

She sighed and sat down on her bed. “I needed more time in the shower.”

“If you’re going to have your weird twin talk, I better leave,” Chic said, teasing them, but also ultimately bored, which made him exit the room as the twins rolled their eyes.

“So, who’s the lucky guy?” Nate asked with a smile, placing his phone down and lazily smirking at his sister.

“I’m not gonna tell you,” Steph grinned, standing in front of their life-sized mirror. “It’s not gonna work out anyway. Is this outfit okay?”

The boy laughed. “Sure thing, you’re not into him at all. And no, it is definitely not okay. You need to put on a dress.”

The blonde turned around with a frown, placing her hands onto her hips. “Nate, we’re going to the movies.”

“Are you sure? Maybe this mystery guy is a lot more interesting than the last one and will take you to a restaurant?”

“And you say I’m too into my fantasies,” Steph said with a slight chuckle in her voice. “He probably just wants to hang out because it’d be good for his reputation.”

“Stephie, you gotta stop thinking of yourself like that. You’re hot. And you’re smart and kind and funny, and all the other things guys would like.”

“Yeah, whatever. I’m staying in this outfit,” she mumbled and leaned forward to remove the towel from her head. “When is somebody taking you out? Some boys caught your eye lately?”

“Nope. Just the ones on the internet. And I’m between downloading Tinder or going cruising to some gay bars. Wanna come?”

Steph chuckled. “Sure thing, Na. As long as there’s no one else coming with us.”

“Twin-bonding night, yes! What about next Saturday?”

“Sure,” she mumbled and started brushing her wet hair carefully.

“Kids! Dinner!”

The boy was up from his bed immediately and gave Steph a kiss on the cheek before exiting the room. The girl sighed, still hearing her brothers fighting, but many steps running downstairs to get some food into their energetic systems.

“Steph?” Ricky asked, poking his head into the room. “Coming?”

“Yeah, in ten minutes. Start without me.”

#

Steph frowned at her parents when all the boys started slowly gathering downstairs, all around her. She knew the cameras were rolling and she knew her mom and dad had an announcement to make. With the times Jane had been sick over the last few weeks, she had two possible theories for that. She was either pregnant or had been diagnosed with a horrible disease. She knew her imagination was huge, but she couldn’t push those thoughts out of her head.

Once everyone had sat down on the big couch, or on the ground in front of it, both of the parents smiled. So, it couldn’t have been bad, right?

“Can you hurry up?” Theo sighed. “I have this game going on upstairs…”

“No more games tonight. We want to have family time,” Cory said, making all the kids groan.

“No, dad. Please,” Ricky pled. “I wanted to finish building the plane tonight.” He had just gotten a new LEGO set from a challenge they did for YouTube.

“It has to wait today,” Jane agreed with her husband. “Do you all remember the house that’s being built for us?”

“Is it ready?” Steph asked carefully.

“No, not yet, sweetie,” Cory chuckled. “But it will be by August.”

“Yes!” Nate exclaimed as everybody started talking loudly, gushing about their new rooms and a lot more bathrooms. Their workers had been building a new big house for them in a small town in Vermont, called Bluewere. They had all been there to check the place out, and Steph didn’t think it was that little, really. There was a big mall, and a lot of cafés, etcetera. She couldn’t wait to get her own room either. Finally, after all these years.

“Guys, get quiet now,” Jane ordered with a chuckle and rolled her eyes at the camera playfully. It took five minutes to finally shut everybody up. “So, the real news is that you’re getting another sibling.”

While the parents looked happy and excited, Jimmy and Hugo, the two youngest boys started bouncing on the couch excitedly. Ricky and Theo who were 10 and 12, looked like they didn’t mind, but like they were very confused about all of this. And the three oldest kids groaned, Steph let her head fall onto her twin brother’s shoulder.

“Again?” Chic asked.

“Mom,” Steph whined.

“I have six of them already,” Chic protested and groaned again, really disappointed.

“Why do you need more? We don’t have any space or money left,” Nate said.

“Another brother,” Steph sighed to herself.

“It could be a girl, honey,” Jane said, mostly worried about what her only daughter thought of all of this. She knew she hadn’t gotten much attention because of the boy-dramas all of her brothers had, and because she never complained, and never asked for it either. She was the only girl and in the middle of the boys.

“It’s not going to be a girl,” she said. “You were just lucky with me,” she added with a little smile, knowing she had to be happy for mom and dad. She didn’t want to disappoint them and was a hundred percent sure that she would love that little boy once it was outside in the real world.

“So how many weeks are you?” Chic asked carefully.

“Ten.”

The three oldest kids observed her stomach carefully but didn’t say a word as the smaller ones were the ones to start talking.

“New rooms and more bathrooms,” Nate said to his brother and sister quietly and put his hands out, palms upward. Both Steph and Chic slapped his hand, low fiving it.