Jack stood in the bathroom looking in the mirror. He couldn’t believe he just spent an entire afternoon looking the way he did. His brown hair with red tones was shaggy and looked like it hadn’t been combed in days. The freckles on his cheeks were really standing out from being in the sun all day and he was definitely getting chubby around his stomach. Jack bit down and gritted his teeth together then opened his mouth. His teeth were clean and white, but he felt like brushing them anyway.
“Are you going to take a shower or not?!”
“Hold on mom….I’mmmm brushin myyy teff.”
“Well hurry up…I need to go to the bathroom.”
Jack knew the issue of one bathroom was going to come up again and again. Jack had agreed to take showers at night so that his mom could have the bathroom in the mornings to get ready for work.
“What time do you have to leave for work tomorrow?”
“I need to be to the office by eight o’clock…Greg is going to pick me up at seven thirty and show me the bus route to get there so that I can start taking the bus until we have enough money to buy a car.”
“Why don’t you just ask Greg to bother one of his?”
Jack turned on the shower immediately after making his comment. He couldn’t hear his mom’s rebuttal over the noise of the shower and smiled as he jumped into the hot steaming water. As he rubbed shampoo through his hair he thought about all that had happened. His first full day in Denver had proven to be pretty eventful. He played against the best basketball player he had ever met, showed off his skill of shooting three pointers, and spent the afternoon talking to a girl he thought was beautiful. Jack couldn’t wait to see what the next day would bring. For the first time in two years he was actually excited about going to school.