FLICKER [PJO]

1 • Full Names Are Embarrassing Unless Your Middle Name Is Fern

Spinning out, waiting for ya
To pull me in.
I can see you're lonely down there,
Don't you know that I am right here?
Satellite • Harry Styles

🌸🌸🌸

I cannot look at another breakfast burrito without having the urge to jump out of a second-story window or hide under my bed shaking and in tears. If I were a normal human being, living a normal life, with my normal mum and slightly eccentric stepdad, in Hartford, Connecticut, I would be eating those once-beloved breakfast burritos by the dozen before heading off to school.

But, unfortunately for me and for anyone reading this tragic story of my burrito phobia, I wasn't a normal kid. I wasn't missing any limbs, I wasn't spectacular in any sport or subject in school, I wasn't popular, ergo, I wasn't special.

My only problem was that I had both dyslexia and AD-HD, meaning the words on a piece of paper would dance when I tried to concentrate and I could never sit still. To the world hidden by the Mist, I was a normal fourteen-year-old surviving her first year of high school. And yet, on the inside of the mist, I was a very vulnerable half-blood and had no idea what I was and what I could do.

On Monday, the sixteenth of March, I was woken up by three screeching alarms, the heavenly scent of breakfast burritos, and my dog nudging my hand that hung off my bed. If anyone knew Flick Fairbourne well, they would know that she was not the brightest morning person to walk the planet. It took me a few minutes and my ears were close to going deaf before I rolled out of bed, my brunette hair streaked with weirdly natural strands of blonde hair was seated like a bird's nest around my head. 

I walked down the stairs hunched over and yawning (as well as tripping over every second step) before finding my stepfather, Samuel Pierce, busy in the kitchen and my mum, Aurora Fairbourne, laughing over a joke he had made as she was working on her laptop, sitting cross-legged on one of the barstools.

"Hey, kiddo," Sam said saluting me with his spatula against his forehead.

As I passed the mirror at the bottom of the stairs, I caught sight of a girl who looked like I did every morning. My hair was knotted, greasy, and a dreadful mess, my eyebags were darkened by mascara I had forgotten to remove the night before, my retainers were still clasped to my teeth, I was sweaty, my arms were covered in sleep marks and my pink flannel pyjamas were heavily crumped.

"Morning," I grumbled turning away from the mirror and sitting on the barstool next to my mother. My mum and I were close to identical, she joked I was a flick off her shoulder. We had the same expressions, the same hair colour, the same skin tone, the same nose and I was almost as tall as she was. The only excruciating difference was my green eyes, compared to her soft and pale blue ones.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the joy to become a morning person like she was or the way Sam Pierce was. Curse the morning people; why did the sun have to rise so early, every day?

"Mum, when I asked you to make sure I woke up at 5:30, I meant one alarm that would eventually wake me up. Not five!" I protested as Sam placed down a cup of steaming hot coffee in front of me.

She rolled her eyes and took a sip from her weird shake that was made with apple, kale and broccoli that she made sure to drink every single morning. "Six, including Simone," she corrected, referring to my German Shepherd veteran of a dog.

"Seven!" Sam piped in cheerfully, waving his spatula so violently I was afraid the olive oil was ready to whack me in the face. "Breakfast burrito?" He asked, holding out a plate with two soft burritos that made my stomach rumble angrily. Why should he ask the question, if he already knew what the answer was?