Meet Me at Infinity ➵ Ashton Irwin

[8] Glee Cast

{Ellie}

“You say goodbye, and I say hello" - Glee Cast

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‘Ellie! Get up!’ my dad hollers from downstairs. I’m somewhere between asleep and awake, so the comment flies over my head as I groan something unintelligible and roll over onto my other side. Three minutes later and I hear the thumping of footsteps on the stairs, signalling my dad’s impending arrival.

Angry morning dad is not a good dad, I think to myself. Then again, this bed is so warm…

‘ELLIE! GET UP!’

I shrink into myself as a sudden wave of cold air sinks onto my bare limbs, fumbling around for the blanket my dad has ripped off me in his fit of frustration. I fail and sigh, spread-eagling myself over the bed. ‘But it’s so nice here, Dad,’ I whine. ‘Plus I’m really tired.’

‘That’s what you get for staying out late last night. With a boy, that I’ve never even heard of.’

I roll my eyes as I sit up, rubbing the stars from my vision as I fight the light-headedness of a lack of sleep. I swing my legs over the edge and jam my feet into my ugg boots, yawning loudly as I stand and shake my head to free up my bed-hair. ‘Dad, it’s not like that. He’s just a friend.’

Dad’s face is swollen like an angry tomato as he glares at me. ‘I saw him at the door. How old was he? 25?’

‘He’s 20,’ I correct.

Dad’s eyes roll much like mine just had, and there’s something so strange about the gesture on a tall, balding man that I nearly laugh. But I don’t, because if I laughed when Dad was looking at me like that, then it would only make things even worse.

’20,’ he says sarcastically. ‘Because that’s so much better.’

I sigh, frustrated. ‘Dad, calm down, okay? I’ll explain everything in the car if it’ll make you feel any better,’ I finish in a low grumble.

Dad’s silent for a long while. When he finally speaks, his voice is tight and gravelly. ‘Fine. Just get ready for school, okay? You’ll have to eat breakfast in the car. You’ve got ten minutes.’

I curse under my breath and duck into the bathroom, grabbing my school uniform and tugging it on. It was almost the same as the last one – a stiff, pleated grey skirt and a blouse starched so white it almost made snow seem dull. A green and yellow striped tie around my neck.

I make an undignified snort noise as I glare at my reflection, failing to tame my mop of hair as I resort to tugging it into a lumpy ponytail. School uniforms, I think with a snarl at myself. The most attractive articles of clothing to ever be worn on this earth.

I grab the sports uniform too, shoving it in my backpack with the other assortment of odd first-day objects – a spare padlock, a bully-proof lunch box, some converse, a spare pair of socks (hey, if you’ve got sport the first day, you don’t want to be the only kid with feet that smell like shit) and an array of ribbons for the schools who decided ‘uniform’ meant even dictating ribbon length and colour in the hair.

I finish with a printed-off map and a timetable from the email the school sent my dad, which only just manages to fit besides the lunchbox and the socks jammed between the Converse. I sling it over my shoulder and take the plastic bag with all my stationary in the other hand, stumbling down the stairs and out into the awaiting car. I practically throw my stuff in the boot and leap into the front seat, slamming the door behind me. The car leaps forward like a jungle animal perched on its hind legs, rearing to go. Well, as ‘jungle animal’ as you can go in our rusty old Toyota.