Iris |Peter Pan OUAT|

My crappy morning

This morning I wanted to die.

I've always been a bad sleeper: insomnia, sleep paralysis, and as of recently, night terrors. Last night, my insomnia was so bad I barely got two hours of sleep in. Barely. So, I woke up this morning with my alarm blaring straight in my ear, enough that I actually jumped out of my covers. Yes, I jumped. I went to the restroom like usual, you know to use the toilet and to wash my face- I go to wash my hands after turning the faucet and I looked up. In the mirror there was a girl with horrible shadows under her dead umber eyes, her brown hair was askew in so many impossible directions that it possibly defied the laws of physics, and her lips were chapped that when she/ I attempted to smile it split open and bled. I spent fifteen minutes biting on a toilet paper to get the pressure to stop the bleeding as I got ready for school: I tamed my hair and  put on a cute outfit- a white turtleneck underneath a sage cardigan vest with a pair of tan pants.

And just like how every morning should go, I headed downstairs for my "healthy" morning breakfast. My younger sisters were already in the kitchen on the bar stools, eating theirs. Violet, or Via, as we call her, jumped off her stool and shuffled over to our cabinet where she pulled out a plate.

"You look like shit." She said and handed me the plate. "There's eggs still left in the pan if you're interested, but they're cold, so you'll have to warm them up." I was surprised that she'd made me breakfast. At least cold eggs were better than no eggs.

"Thanks." I made my way over to the stove and picked a tiny piece from the pan and popped it into my mouth. I gagged, it was hardly edible. "Oh, my God, Via. Are you trying to kill somebody?"

"What are you talking about." Via shoveled her fork into her mouth. Beside her, our youngest sister, Lily, gently pushed her plate away from her. Via sent her an incredulous stare. "What are you doing?"

"Sorry, Vee. I couldn't stomach any more of it." She said before hopping off her own stool and raiding our fridge. She pulled out a crisp, green apple and bit into it.

"You're seriously not going to wash it?" I snatched the apple from her hand despite her fighting, and ran it under some water from the sink. "If Via's eggs aren't going to kill you, then maybe pesticides will."

"Oh, my God, can you guys just be grateful that I made you breakfast- at least once?"

"Sure, if we both survive the rest of today." I lampooned and then turned to Via. "Hey, do you think you can drive Lily home today. Ms. Mills reached out to me last night and asked if I could push Henry's tutoring lesson around three thirty. I'll barely be able to get to their house on time, so I wouldn't be able to stay after her cheer practice is over."

"Yeah, I guess. I have debate, so I'll need to stay anyways. Is that alright with you, Lily?"

Lily took another bite from her apple and covered her mouth before speaking. "Sure, but I think that I might bring some of my friends over." She swallowed and wiped the corner of her mouth with her sleeve. I cringed internally. "Oh, and Iris"-

"Yeah." I said.

"It's your turn to do the dishes. Better get to it, we gotta leave in thirty minutes." The nerve of  her is beyond me.

***

If you would rate your love for school from one to ten, what would would it be? For me, I'd give it a -5/10. Ok, school in of itself, isn't bad. However, I was never a fast leaner and I didn't pick topics up as fast as the other kids. My dad constantly fussed over my grades and my mom berated me on my inability to perform, at some point my mom said something about me being slow and dim-witted, and if memory serves, she even threw the 'r' word in too. Something about that flipped a switch in me that day; I studied harder than all the other kids, I worked my ass off constantly- even on the smallest of assignments, and I did everything I could to catch-up. And eventually, I did.