expired

Chapter 3, Part 1

When I got home last night, Matt and Jane had been sleeping on the couch, the home and garden channel flipped on the tv. Turns out it wasn't just for middle aged men and their sons. I snuck up the stairs into my room, being careful to skip the creaky fourth step.

    Clover was waiting for me in her room, wagging her tail vigorously. I gave her a quick pat on the head before jumping into my bed, staring at my phone screen until it lit up.

555-479-2347

Hey, long time no see!

    I rolled my eyes but laughed, my thumbs fluttering across the keyboard.

To 555-479-2347

I know, right! Definitely should meet up sometime soon.

555-479-2347

Will do.

    At that point I had put my phone away and drifted off to sleep. It was late, and Clay and I had stayed up on that roof talking long enough for our Dixie cups to sog with the water.

    Now, though, I had Matt hovering above me, his hot morning breath nearly suffocating me. "Good morning!" He said excitedly before ripping my sheets off of me, exposing me to the cold, cold world.

    "Matt!" I groaned and rolled over.

    "Matt, what did I tell you about doing that?" I heard a familiar voice in my doorway. I turned back over to the other side and saw Jane in my doorway, fully dressed with her hair up in a neat ponytail, complete with a sparkly pin. Matt brought home a girl who uses sparkly hair pins, I thought to myself, rubbing my eyes and doing a double take to see if it was real. Sparkly hair pins. I then looked to my brother, whose hair was still uncombed, teeth unbrushed and only had shorts on, underneath which I prayed was underwear. "And weren't you supposed to start getting ready an hour ago? We have a brunch to get to!"

    "It's Wednesday?" I said. Interesting day for a brunch.

    "He's meeting my parents," Jane clarified.

    "I'm meeting her parents," Matt repeated after her, as if he'd remembered this all along. I raised an eyebrow at him and he leaned in closer, whispering, "Pray for me," as he looked to the heavens above.

    "Alright," I said. "But unless this 'brunch' is being held in my room, I'd like you all to extract yourselves from the premises." Jane nodded and stepped in to grab Matt's hand, pulling him out after her. Matt held up his free hand as half of a 'prayer hands', looking up and mouthing "pray for me". I snorted but covered my mouth, not wanting Jane, who apparently took this very seriously, to hear.

    Once they were gone I rolled out of bed, walking into the bathroom where Clover had decided to spend the night. She woke up at the sound of my footsteps, following me around all the way through my morning routine. As I was finished my last few bites of cereal, Clover sauntered into the kitchen with her leash in her mouth.

    "Someone's excited, huh?" I said as I finished pulling on my shoes and clipped her leash to her collar. Clover proceeded to pull me to the door, impatiently huffing as I opened it and turned around to make sure it had locked behind me. "Chill, Clover!" I hushed her.

    She had apparently been very excited to get to the Tree that morning, and our daily walk turned into more of a run. By the time we got to the Tree, I was breathing much heavier than I should have been. "I need to work out," I muttered to myself, ducking through the curtain of leaves and bending down to take Clover's leash off.