A head's conviction (EN)

Lacey's taste (1/2)

Verena woke up from a bird that started to sing. She rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then turned to look at the clock on her brother's nightstand, 6.00 am. Verena sighed, there was no use in going back to sleep now. If she did now would only be tired when she woke up in an hour.

She then looked at Evan for a moment. He was still asleep, his eyes closed tightly as if he was trying to shut out everything. It caused him to have wrinkles on his forehead just like when he was angry or was thinking deeply. He had his blanket pulled up to his chin and breathed calmly. Verena smiled, he looked so peaceful.

Quietly she got up out of bed, trying not to make a sound while doing so. She didn't want to wake him, not after everything he had done for her last night. She sneaked past him and left the room to take a shower.

After the shower she went into her own room. 'Alright Lacey, let's get to an agreement.' she sighed 'You can decide what I wear today.'

Lacey, who had been silent until now, cheered excitedly and then went quiet again to think. 'Alright,' she said in a cheerful tone 'take the grey dress that you bought last summer, with black heels and a silver necklace.'

Verena nodded and did as told, she clothed herself the way Lacey had told her. Verena had been the one who had picked the dress last summer and bought it without Lacey's input. But she had bought it to wear to a classy party and not for school. Wouldn't people think that she was an attention whore or something?

'No' Lacey hissed at Verena's thoughts 'you look absolutely stunning, not like a whore, so go get yourself ready to show the world.'

Verena nodded and left the room to go downstairs.

Riley smiled at her from the kitchen table. He was still dressed in his pyjamas and his hair was messy from sleeping, but it looked cute on him. In front of him there was a plate with pancakes topped off with strawberries, with a fork he tried to eat some of it.

Verena leaned back against the kitchen counter while looking at him. 'Did mommy make you these pancakes before she left for work?' Riley nodded as an answer. 'That's really sweet of her.' Verena threw a smile at him. 'Will Evan or dad bring you to school?' She was used to approaching him in some cutesy way, this was because he was much younger than her.

To be precise Riley was 17 years younger than her. Evan was only two years younger. Because of the age gap between Riley and them their parents often expected that they helped out raising their little brother.

'I will.' their father replied while walking into the kitchen. 'Why aren't you eating something Verena, get yourself ready.' He threw a look on the empty countertop while making his way from the kitchen to the living room.

Evelyn started to cheer. 'Can we have pancakes too?'

Verena sighed and shook her head. She took a box of muesli and filled the bottom of her bowl with it, she added some milk to it. Verena didn't feel hungry, she never did in the morning.

'Big girl.' It was the voice of Lacey again. 'This way at least you won't get fat and we can just skip lunch.'

Verena shook her head but didn't answer her. She never replied to the voices in her head when there were other people around. She would like to but just couldn't. She was ashamed for the fact that she heard voices and wanted to protect Riley from the madness in her head. People would just think that she was insane if she would talk to her voices out loud.

Riley, who was still watching her, tilted his head a little. 'Why are you just eating that?' He got up from his chair and walked to her. 'If you don't like that you can eat my pancakes.'

She smiled and knelt down next to him. 'No, silly, those are your pancakes.' She messed his hair up some more. 'I don't feel so well but I will eat something else later, okay?'

Hearing those words Riley nodded and smiled. What was he even to worry about? He was too young to know a lot about eating to take care of your body. Everything he cared about with food was if he liked it or not. When he ate things that he liked he could easily eat a lot of it but when he ate something he didn't like it was hard to make him finish even half a plate. That was probably why he was worried that she didn't like the muesli.

Riley hurried back to his chair to finish the pancaked before he had to get ready to get to school.

Meanwhile Verena tried to make her way through her breakfast. When she had finally finished it she placed the bowl into the dishwasher and grabbed her bag to go to school.