Lost and Found

Dread

When my alarm went off at six the next morning, I was surprisingly refreshed, even after my late night last night. I had been basically sleeping all day for the past week recovering from my rib injury so I guessed that my constant resting made up for the lost sleep.

I got ready as best as I could without moving my chest area too much to avoid the persistent pain I was still feeling.

When I went downstairs, I was a bit surprised to find all of my brothers together in the kitchen. Normally they were all spread out throughout the humongous house and I rarely came across more than one or two of them at a time.

Living with other people, especially men, still came across as strange to me. My apartment with mom was fairly quiet, and it got even quieter after her tragic death. The noise in the morning especially wasn't bad, just... different.

Lately, I even noticed that there seemed to be cliques among my brothers- Leo and Luke, Alex and Nick, and Lorenzo talked among the others but also kept to himself a lot of the time. He had a constant look of being lost in thought. And me? I didn't seem to belong within any of their little groups.

Although I'd lived with my brothers for a week or two already, I still felt like I was kept out of important discussions involving the family. For example, when I had entered the kitchen for breakfast, their talking that I had heard from the hallway had died down in my presence.

I gave a half smile to avoid the awkwardness of them all staring at me and focused my attention on getting some yogurt from the massive, overly stocked fridge. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say I took my time getting it. When I turned around and still felt their eyes on me I said maybe a little too aggressively, "What??" They seemed almost surprised that I had said anything, and started looking around the room to look at anything but me.

I sat down to eat my breakfast and by the time I had finished eating, they'd begun to make smalltalk with each other again. My presence wasn't that disturbing to them was it?

Nick had sat down next to me as he chewed (loudly) the corn flakes in his cereal. He even showed me a toy in the bottom of the cereal box that he was a little too excited about. I smiled for the first time that day because of my twin's immaturity.

I had noticed that he seemed to be even more clingy after the whole rib puncturing my lung fiasco, while the rest of my brothers seemed even more distant. Is that just a twin thing? Although, I wasn't entirely sure how siblings were really supposed to act toward one another, so none of it really bothered me too much.

Alex finally announced that he would be driving us. I was skeptical of his driving skills but he assured me that since he'd had his license for a whole six months that I'd be perfectly safe. I wasn't convinced. Leo offered me a sympathetic pat on the back as he left the kitchen with my two oldest brothers, and I decided what kind of gravestone I wanted for my funeral after Alex's driving killed us.

I grabbed my backpack that I'd brought my stuff from my old apartment and my old school things in. It was a little old, but it had some emotional value so I didn't have the heart to part with it. As I put it on, I made sure to position the straps away from my ribs, as they still hurt even if I lightly touched them.

Alex drove a big truck that had huge speakers and before we left for school he asked me a question that made Nick gasp in shock. "What music do you want me to play?"

Before I could answer him, Nick interrupted me. "You'll let her pick the music??" He sounded almost...hurt? "You've never once let me pick and I ride to school with you everyday!" He huffed and childishly rolled his eyes.