Mashing the snooze button on his phone one more time, Breslin rolled over and stared at the ceiling. He loathed waking up early. To him, there was nothing worth doing before twelve o’clock. He contemplated rolling over and sleeping a little bit more, but the banging on his door took that choice away from him.
“You’re late.” Elise screamed on the other side. “You’re going to end up failing.”
“I’m not late, it’s only six thirty.” Breslin whispered to himself. Upon uttering the words, he looked at his cell phone clock and noticed it was seven o’clock. “Dang it all!”
Rushing in the morning was something Breslin loathed more than waking up early. It took more energy to rush than to just wake up earlier. And he was not in the mood to be late. After rushing to put on his clothes and slinging his bag over his shoulder, Breslin opened his door to find Rory standing there.
“Well speak of the devil.” Breslin sneered as he tried to move past him.
“Do you have a minute Breslin” Rory asked calmly
“No Rory, I’m going to be late” Breslin shot back at him
“Well I could give you a ride, if you want. We could talk.”
“No thanks” he said as he turned his back “Elise is driving me”
"Guess what’s for breakfast, pancakes", Elsie interjected as she walked up to Rory. The air between the brothers began to thicken.
“No time, I’m late, let’s go” Breslin said as he turned his back on his brother and left the room.
Elise watched her conflicted son storm off to the vehicle and then turned around to pat Rory on the back.
The ride to Clearveil was taken in silence. Breslin had his headphones in, but he wasn’t listening to anything. He just didn’t want to walk into any unwanted confrontations with his mother. It was bad enough that Rory was back in the picture. Of course he would magically pop back up just as they started doing alright.
As the car screeched to a halt, Breslin took out his earphones and began to open the door.
“You have no reason to be angry.” Elise said once his ears were free.
“Whatever.” Breslin shot back once he was finally free of the car.
He really didn’t want to hear that.
“Everything peachy?” Ava asked as she walked up to Breslin.
“Did you know he was going to be there this morning?” Breslin fired. He knew that Ava had done nothing wrong, but he just needed someone to be mad at.
“Whoa, can we retract this conversation back to the point where I knew what you were talking about.” Ava returned.
“Rory, he was standing outside my bedroom door.” Breslin said as he tried to move past her.
“Oh.” Ava said.
Breslin stopped.
“You knew?” He screamed, turning his focus back to Ava.
“No. Well not technically. He said he was thinking about dropping by and I advised against it.”
“And you couldn’t have told me.”
“I didn’t think it was that important.”
“Thanks a lot.” Breslin said while he shoved his way past Ava.
As he pushed his way past the crowd of people what still managed to surprise Breslin about Clearveil was how cranky everybody was despite the fact that they don’t have to pay for their education and get up to two square meals a day. The thinking really didn’t make much sense to him, but he wasn’t about to complain because he wasn’t in the best of moods either.
And sure enough, standing in front of the school with his smile and his camera stood Eric.
“Please man, no more pictures.” Breslin pleaded in a tired voice.
“Are you sure Daisy is no trouble.” Eric asked in a serious tone. Something that even Breslin picked up on as odd.
“For the last time, yes.” Breslin replied while moving past him.
“Ok.”
Breslin pushed past the huge crowd that was gathering in the main hall in order to see what everyone was gawking at. And if his day wasn’t already bad, things were about to get a whole lot worst.