Above and Through it All (Kellic)

Chapter One.

Sunlight. Of all the things I hated most in the mornings, sunlight was most definitely topping that list. I groaned and managed to push myself up onto my elbows, keeping my head tucked with my chin to my chest, my eyes closed. Sunlight. What a bitch.

I opened my eyes and pushed myself into a sitting position, hearing things pop and crack as my body put itself back together. Unfortunately, I also heard the sliding of glass across hardwood floor when I moved. That was disturbing for two reasons, the first of which was that I was on the floor. The second bit of alarming was that there was broken glass scattered about. I stood shakily, groping for my desk as I held my head.

"Oh, fuck." I groaned, vowing to get thicker curtains by that night. Of course, knowing me, I wouldn't even make it to the store to look. I finally ammassed enough courage to glance at the digital clock resting on my nightstand. 6:12 A.M.. Oh, thank you-

The thought was cut off by the sound of footsteps on the floor beneath me. Shit. I was instantly awake, looking around my room to try and assess the damage. It wasn't as bad as I thought. There were no broken windows or bottles, only a broken picture frame and minimal blood. I sighed with as much relief as I could have while my mother was awake, which wasn't much.

"KELLIN!" I heard her voice, shrill and terrible, carried up the stairs on the wings of the morning. My hatred of the sun was immediately dampened by my immeasurable hatred for her. I refused to call her Mom, or even mother. She simply was. And, sometimes, she simply wasn't. I ran into the bathroom that was adjacent to my bedroom, looking into the mirror and wincing. There was certainly a lot of blood, luckily all of it from my nose. I tried to figure out what the hell happened as I cleaned the blood from my hairline and eyelashes, smiling into the mirror. I could see the caged animal pacing behind the forced sparkle of my eyes, but I made damn sure my... Burden wouldn't be able to. I walked out of the bathroom at a slow pace that I knew would fool her into thinking that I had just gotten up and was still shuffling around.

"KELLIN!" She called again, only this time I could hear her near-panicked footsteps charging up the staircase.

"Yes." I said, my voice laced a slow, degrading sarcasm too light to detect.

"Oh, good. I thought you were-" her senseless prattling was cut short by what would pass for an overdramatic gasp had it been anyone else. I looked at my door to find it cracked open with her insufferable head peeking through. She was staring, her mouth agape, at the broken glass and picture on the floor.

"Kellin!" She said in that horrible, soap-opera way she had. I smiled. I was known throughout Red High School for that smile. She looked up at me upon not hearing a response, her features softening when she saw that I obviously wasn't worried about the mess, and I could almost see her decide that if I wasn't worried, she shouldn't be worried either.

"Please leave. I need to get ready for school." I said, trying my hardest not to cheer wildly as my door closed and the tell-tale shuffle steps moved away from my room. She was insane. She never knocked, she was always so dramatic, and, when she got it into her head, she drank. I could have accepted the other aspects of her being, but when she drank, she turned into my father. She was mean, she cursed, which was something she never did, she blamed me for every little pitfall of her life, calling me her worst mistake. And the best part was, she could never understand why I was so fucking pissed at her all the time because she never remembered any of it.

Pushing the acid thoughts from my mind took effort, and a lot of it, but I managed to as I shuffled around the glass, digging through the haphazard pile of clothes on my floor for something that looked decent and didn't smell like a week-old corpse. I finally settled on a pair of white skinny jeans and a muscle shirt printed with a grunge American flag. I looked at my clock again to see how long I had before school started. 7:00 exactly. I cursed my mother in every language I knew and some that I'm pretty sure didn't exist as I rushed back to the bathroom, yanking a brush through my matted mess of hair, smiling as it worked itself into a perfect black frame around my less than perfect face. I grimmaced as I let my gaze roam my own face, picking out every tiny imperfection and sighing. I told myself that every blemish was why I was alone, with only the bitch to keep me company, but I, of course, knew the real reason. I shoved a beanie on my head, smiling. The deep red perfected the outfit. I yanked on my favorite hoodie, the one with holes in the sleeves for my thumbs, and flipped the hood up over my beanie. I completed the outfit with a pair of extremely well-worn Converse all stars and a tattered and stained backpack filled with absolutely nothing but a sketchbook and pencils with different densities of lead. I made my way down the stairs, not having bothered to clean up the broken glass on my floor, that thought kind of eating at the back of my mind, but I pushed it away and waved absently to my mother as I emerged into the chilled morning air. I knew that by noon I would be melting, this was California, after all. I began to walk to school, forcing my stepts to be lighter and quicker, plastering my smile over my sadness and anger like a mural covering cracks in a wall.