Slate | ✓

TWO | ATHENA

The morning brings with it a headache and the sound of Annie pounding on the walls. "Will, for the love of God, how many times do I have to tell you to take it outside?"

There's no response from Will and John's room across the hall. My youngest brother, Henry, begins to cry. Annie, his mother, tries to quiet him. The sound grows distant as they move away from my door.

I check my phone. 6:50 am. Fuck. Fifty new messages. Some from Instagram, but mainly from the group chat, titled PATTI's EPIC BDAY BASH 2K19.

Feeling more awake than I want to and painfully aware that in a couple of days I'll be forced to be out the door around this time every morning, I flip onto my stomach and scroll through the rest of my messages. I don't bother attempting to keep track of the flow of various overlapping conversations and voices, focusing on the sparse bits of relevant information interjected between gifs and memes. I've already contributed to the fund for booze, which somebody got their older sister to purchase.

A name catches my eye, and beside it is a blue notification. I sit up in bed, legs folding beneath me. Hesitating over her profile picture, I press on the new message. Our last saved conversation is from four months ago.

can i come by later? I need to talk to u.

She uses a period. No buffer emojis or comforting acronyms. The message was received at 3:16 am. Ella's never been one to leave things unsaid, and this summer has been a suspended silence. Like the two of us are staring at each other from across a chasm and waiting for the other to fumble. The impending start of the school year has become added pressure, and I guess she's buckling.

Fine. Come at 12.

My thumbs dash across the keyboard and press send. The swoop of the text being delivered seals my fate. If she wants to talk in person, we can talk in person; I don't hide from anyone. It'll be our first time hanging out with just the two of us in months.

Things just turn to shit sometimes. It happens, even to people who used to tell each other everything. What went down in the spring was a fucking mess, and I can still see the ugly remnants of blame in her eyes when she thinks I'm not looking. I don't feel bad, and I won't be made to. 

I let my phone preoccupy me until I believe it's a more reasonable time to leave the cocoon of my bed. My room is almost empty of furniture, with white walls surrounding a bed beside a floor-length mirror, which I now catch myself in and stretch, causing the skin of my lower abdomen to peek out from under my pyjama top. A single, jagged crack runs diagonally across the surface of the mirror, distorting the reflection that stares back at me. These days, I can still feel myself growing taller, although John says I'm imagining it, but I just think he doesn't want to be the shortest. 

Charlie must be tall, like Will and I, because that's how I've always thought of him. It's hard to picture the Victor-Annie amalgamation that Henry will one day become, so I just enjoy the round, pudgy thing he is now—at least when he isn't crying or screaming.

Emerging from my room, I keep my gaze forward, ignoring Annie's presence through a cracked doorway in my periphery. She's struggling to change an upset Henry out of his pyjamas. The chemical scent of an air freshener poorly masks the lingering reek of cigarette smoke that comes from the room John and Will share. Anything that annoys Annie delights me. Even though the leniency Will gets for his stupid shit is unfair, considering the treatment I get for my stupid shit.

I'm surprised to hear a sign of life in the kitchen as I approach. It's John's laughter: a light, musical sound that contradicts his imposing figure. He must have today off from work. He's in construction. It exhausts him, but I think he likes the dedication the job demands.