Hide Your Fires

1: Step One

Step one: Wake up.
Step two: Go down the hallway and wake up Matthew.
Step three: Go into the room across from Matthew's and wake up Jude.
Step four: Repeat step two because Matthew probably went back to sleep already.
Step five: Take a five minute shower and clean my face, brush my teeth and hair, and dry my hair.
Step six: Repeat step two again and threaten him with a bucket of cold water if he doesn't wake up. He knows I'm good on that promise.
Step seven: Make sure Jude is wearing underwear (and it's clean). I let him dress himself so sometimes he forgets.
Step eight: Get dressed.
Step nine: Listen for the shower running to make sure that Matthew is finally up.
Step ten: Style my hair and do my makeup.
Step eleven: Double check that Jude has completed all of his homework and that it is in his backpack.
Step twelve: Get the milk and cereal out and peel two oranges and a banana for breakfast.
Step thirteen: Remember that I forgot to pack Jude's lunch the night before and hurriedly put something together for him.
Step fourteen: Make sure my homework is done. If not, do it. If it is, put it in my bag.
Step fifteen: Tell Jude to make sure Matthew is getting up and ready and then tell them both to come out and eat breakfast before it's too late.
Step sixteen: Eat breakfast at the table with Matthew and Jude with tired small talk.
Step seventeen: Drive Jude to the elementary school.
Step eighteen: Drive myself and Matthew to high school to start the day.

I hate mornings. There are very few things that I hate more than having to wake up at 5:30 A.M. five days out of the week. Not only do I have to wake up, but I also have to make sure that my two younger brothers are up and getting ready as well. Matthew is even worse with mornings than I am and Jude is just all over the place all of the time so I have to act like a tow truck to make sure that Matt wakes up and gets ready on time and that Jude stays focused on his morning tasks long enough to make sure that he's ready on time as well. My eighteen step plan for weekday mornings works pretty much all of the time but it's still exhausting to make sure that nothing is ever forgotten.

"You need to calm down," Matt informs me as he's scribbling quickly to finish his math homework after I'd scolded him for not doing it last night.

"No, I don't," I argue. "You need to do your homework."

There's a small pot hole in the road- not big enough to make me swerve around it, but enough to jolt the car- and when the front right wheel dives into the small hole in the road, Matt's pencil scrapes along his paper, creating a long line from where he was writing moments ago to the edge of the paper. He curses under his breath. "I am doing my homework."

"You should have done it yesterday," I refute. "If you did, then you wouldn't have to explain to your teacher why there's a huge line across your paper."

"That's not a big deal. The important thing is that it'll get done," He assures me with an annoyed eye roll as we pull into the student parking lot of our high school. Teenagers are swarming the building, readying for another day of education and tormenting and I get out of the driver's seat with my black leather heels clacking against the pavement.

"Whatever," I sigh. "Just make sure that it gets done. Are you coming?"

He shakes his head. "I have to finish this before I go inside."

"Fine, just make sure that you lock the doors when you leave," I remind him before shutting my door with my bag over my shoulder as I walk towards the side entrance to our large high school.

My short pink skirt flaps against the bottom of my thighs as I tug one side of my black leather jacket to make sure that it doesn't fall off of my shoulder.