Running Towards the Light

Chapter 20 - Intel

Chapter 20! Can't believe we've made it this far in the book. Thank you to everyone for reading. And I hope you enjoy this chapter, as always :))))

Today was Friday which meant that I got to hang out with my friends after school!

School today was normal, I guess. I was insanely bored, but I didn't get into trouble and I didn't take any tests. So I guess I was happy about the boredom. There was a massage fight in the lunchroom today between two girls so that was very entertaining. As the only real thing they did was roll on the ground, claw each other, and pull hair.

After school, my friends and I went to Bryce's house which was lots of fun. Bryce's dad is AWOL so his mom takes care of him and his three younger siblings by herself. And let me tell you, his mom is amazing. There are a lot of things I would give to have a mom like that. I guess I was a little too longing for at least an adequate mother sometimes because my mother is awful. Not that I see my mother at all anymore.

So we went over and just hung out. Bryce's house is actually pretty big which means that he has an awesome backyard. My backyard is big enough for us to have a little barbecue station and a bunch of lawn space, but other than that it's totally boring. Even the grass is not fun to play on because it's super dried out so it's very scratchy to run on with bare feet. When I was younger the lawn was our main play spot outside, but that was also when we kept it up. Because my brothers and I are older and lazier now no one likes to mow or water it. And Chris is always complaining about the water bill so why spend extra money.

Bryce's backyard has a trampoline – which is my favorite part – as well as a big and nice grass area. I love playing on trampolines – have all my life. But no matter how much I begged and begged my family to get me one, they never did. Chris always said that it was too expensive, I could get hurt, and in a couple years I would get bored of it and just leave it outside to rot. For the record, I disagree with all of these statements and still want a trampoline to this day.

For a while there me, Ben, and the twins had this whole campaign where we even went on strike for a while until we got a trampoline. Our strike was just refusing to go to school which only worked for one day before Chris got super mad and it was safe to say we all obeyed after that because he was being really scary. Plus, our team wasn't that sound. Ben didn't really want a trampoline, the twins just bullied him into joining us. I was just too young to not be deathly scared of my oldest brother. Spencer did really want a trampoline, but at the same time it wasn't that big of a deal for him. So, I guess in the end, Sam was really the only one who fought for us. Even though literally a year later he was over it and said he didn't want a trampoline at all.

The trampoline was an aspect of Bryce's house that made me want to go over there, all the time. That and his younger siblings — and of course my friend, Bryce. All of my friends love the trampoline and we're all pretty proud of ourselves because two years ago we practically spent the whole summer over there on the trampoline so we can all do a decent amount of tricks! Zeke and Bryce can even do flips off of each other's chests which is crazy because I tried it before and I face planted...

Bryce's little siblings are also really cute and love to play with us. The twins are seven and Bryce's little sister is five so they're at a super cute age and they aren't annoying they're just really funny and sweet. Most of the time my friend doesn't mind when his little siblings tag along but sometimes he gets mad at them and forces them to leave us alone.

After we jumped on the trampoline for a while and talked about some things that were happening in our lives and at school we went inside and had some pizza while we watched a movie. We watched Top Gun because apparently my idiot friend, Zeke, had never seen it before even though it's a classic! Because Chris and Dylan are older than the rest of my siblings, my younger brothers and I have grown up watching old movies and listening to old music. This is one of the main reasons most of my brothers and I like country, though recently a lot of them have gotten into rap and have been sorta rebelling against the country.