Big Bros & Tiny Twins ✔️

Ten: Breakdown

LUCY

As the sun rises, early in silence on Saturday, so do I. Except not with the golden glow the sun emits; rather, I feel awful.

I haven't felt this ill and run down in ages: my head is burning, hot to touch and clammy, yet my body is freezing and shivers run intermittently through my limbs. My body aches with tiredness and pleads me to go back to sleep, I've never felt this extreme desire to succumb to fatigue before. The only emotion I feel I can project right now is breaking down and crying.

But I can't.

I have to do some more homework that the bully has made me do. The eighth grade homework is hard, but doable, it's just the sheer amount of it on top of my own grade homework. And the only way I can get it done by Monday is to do a good chunk this morning before anyone else wakes up.

I hate lying, I'm so tired and stressed, and now, me being ill is probably the result. I sigh and sip from my glass of water before getting out of bed over to our desk space. For an hour or so, I work quietly, although I struggle to focus on the academia as my body struggles to function. The shivers keep reminding me, and I feel numb in despair.

As I concentrate on a hard physics question, my head spinning with dizziness, Darcy suddenly wakes and gets up.

"Morning, Lu!" She smiles and comes over to me, oblivious.

I don't answer as every ounce of energy is on this question.

"Lu, are you ok?" She says and places a hand on my shoulder. I can sense her big eyes, identical to mine, staring at the back of my head.

With my back to her, I shake my head no, and hot tears start to rush down my cheeks. I let out a cough and choked sob, and I hear Darcy's sharp intake of breath. Emotions run through me, I'm ill, angry, sad, and just feel absolutely dreadful.

"Oh Lu, what's wrong?" She hugs me, squeezing me tight and a sense of comfort from the girl who shared my mother's womb with me, warms over me. "Lu, your freezing and your head is burning up! I need to go get Luke, stay there, don't move," her arms leave mine and I hear her footsteps quickly retreating out of the room.

The dizziness feeling only intensifies and I sob, burying my head in my hands, my body involuntarily shaking with shivers. I crumple down in my desk chair, dropping my pencil to the floor.

LUKE

"LUKE! LEO!" Darcy rushes into the living room and jumps onto me, blocking the tv screen.

"Hey hey, what's wrong?" I ask, holding her so she doesn't fall back. "That's a loud voice in the morning-"

My sister interrupts me in a tone of urgency: "-Lucy, she's really ill!"

"What is it?" Leo jumps up and Darcy gets up and I follow them both quickly.

"Fever, hot and cold, I think," she speaks with eleven year old wisdom. "Hurry!" She jogs up the staircase and we follow hastily, really concerned at the welfare of the littlest Walker.

The sight makes my heart ache, Lucy is tucked into a ball, crying and shaking on her desk chair.

"Oh Lu," I immediately walk over to her and crouch down, wrapping my arms tightly around her and kissing her head. Her skin is cold to touch, shaking violently, yet her head is burning hot, when I kiss her. She chokes on a couple of sobs, wrapping her little arms around my neck, crying endlessly.

"Baby, I think you've got a fever," I gently pick her up, and I sit on her bed with Leo next to us.

"Shh," I say as she keeps crying, "Lu it's ok," I rock her gently but she doesn't stop crying into my shoulder.