Halstead Sister

Stressed and Caffeinated

A/N: Again sorry for the long time between posting! I really appreciate all the reads and favorites! Thank you all! As always, feel free to leave feedback and requests!
Requested by grace_202321

Tess POV (17 years old)
To say I was stressed would be an understatement. I was studying for the SATs, had two midterms coming up, and had a huge essay due for English. Between school and diving practice, I barely had enough time to get anything done; there just weren't enough hours in a day. However, there were enough hours in the night. Fueled by Celsius, I stayed up most of the night, lucky if I'd get a 3 hour nap before I had to leave for school. Coffee kept me going through school, plus another Celsius in the afternoon. Then to diving practice. More caffeine. Then home to study. Rinse and repeat. With my busy schedule and Jay's and Will's long work hours, we really only saw each other for a few minutes a day. They had no idea how stressed I was nor how I was doing it all.

It was Thursday morning and I poured myself a large thermos with coffee and tons of sugar to keep me awake, given that I had gotten all of 45 minutes of sleep last night.
"Geez, T, are you gonna have some coffee with that sugar?" Jay teased me as he came into the kitchen.
I smiled at him, trying to hide my fatigue. "You know I have a sweet tooth."
"Still, it looks like you're drinking a thermos of sugar." Jay's voice carried some concern.
"Maybe if we had better coffee in the house I wouldn't need so much sugar." I joked.
"When you do the food shopping, you can buy whatever coffee you want." Jay retorted.
I shook my head and grabbed my bag. "Then bad coffee it is. I'll see you tonight." I started toward the door.
"Have a good day!" Jay called after me.

The day proceeded as expected. School. Caffeine. Diving. Caffeine. Home. I walked into the apartment around 7:30 and found Will setting the table.
"Hey, Tess." He said as I tried to sneak past the kitchen to my room.
I stopped in my tracks and went into the kitchen. "Hey." I smiled.
"Dinner's almost ready." He told me.
"I already ate. Anna and I grabbed dinner after practice." I lied. I didn't have time to eat. I needed to get back to studying.
Will looked me over and sighed. "Alright. If you want to join me and just have a little you're more than welcome to."
I shook my head. "Sorry, I've gotta finish my homework." I made my way into my room and sat on my floor, spreading out my study materials. I got to work on practice math problems. Around 10pm there was a knock on my door.
"Whoa, you've been busy." Will looked around my room. I looked up from my current place on my floor. I had moved from the math pile to the English corner. "You should probably take a break get some sleep." He sounded concerned.
"I will" I told him. "Just wanna finish this up." Will nodded and left. I glanced over at my science textbook and crawled over to it. English was getting boring and I wanted to change it up. Plus, I could reach my Celsius from here and I knew that I'd need it. Eventually, Will came in to say goodnight, reminding me to go to sleep. Jay came home around midnight and I pretended to be getting ready for bed. Once I was sure Jay was in his room, I went back to work. I finally finished the practice section for the reading SAT around 3:30. I was too hyped up on caffeine to sleep and moved on to a grammar practice test. This continued until my alarm went off at 6:10. Fuck. I thought. I scrambled to clean up my room and get my books in my bag for school before taking a shower. A cold shower perked me up and gave me the energy boost to finish getting ready. I went into the kitchen and groaned when I noticed there was no more coffee. I glanced at my phone. There wouldn't be enough time to stop for some on my way to school either. I downed the last half of my Celsius I didn't finish last night and headed to school.

I made it through 3rd period before my body started to betray me. I had a terrible headache, was exhausted, my body ached, and I felt like I was going to throw up. The bell rang and I sluggishly gathered my things. I was the last to leave the room and Anna was in the hall waiting for me.
"Tess, you ok? You don't look so good." She sounded worried.
"I'm fine." I lied. "Just didn't have my morning coffee." The last part was true. We both had science next and took our seats. I managed to stay awake through the class but had no idea what the teacher was talking about. Next was lunch and I'd finally be able to get some caffeine. After buying a cup of coffee I found my friends and sat down, downing the whole cup in seconds.
"Seriously, you good?" Anna piped up. All my friends were staring at me.
"Yeah. As I said, I just really like my morning coffee." My friends didn't seem convinced but they dropped the topic. I ended up buying another cup before the end of lunch.