All Your Fault

Chapter Six

The house seemed eerily empty as I stepped through the door; the echo of my keys hitting the table by the door ricocheted off the maroon walls of the living room. Andrea must have been asleep as I noticed her shoes still by the door. I dropped my bag unceremoniously on the floor and passed a tired hand over my eyes. I hadn't been so emotionally drained in such a long time; I had forgotten how exhausting it was. I glanced over at the clock on the wall and blanched, 8:00 a.m., school started in half an hour.

I quickly grabbed my bag, shoved my keys in my pocket, and took off down the sidewalk towards school. The steady veil of clouds obscuring the raging sunlight that tried to claw it s way through. I silently thanked God that school was only three blocks down. As the hulking building came into view, I was relieved to see that the last hordes of students were walking through the gates. I slipped easily within their numbers, my head down. As we began to slip through the door and burning glare cut its way through the back of my head, I frowned and attempted to seek it out. Burning stormy grey eyes glared out at me from beneath the shroud of shadows that surrounded his broad figure.

I clenched my jaw and ignored him, what right did he have, I don't think I had ever met him in my life. The warning bell rang and I prepared myself for a long arduous day of boring schoolwork, power hungry teachers, and immature classmates.

School passed by in a hazy daze, I stared blankly at every board, yelled at by every teacher for 'sleeping' in each class—when in actuality my eyes were wide open, I just wasn't paying attention. When the final bell rang, I breathed a sigh of relief as I pushed my way through hormone driven teenagers who, for how much they said they detested school couldn't seem to leave it when the final bell rang. They chose to mingle with their peers, make-out under the stairs, and smoke weed in the bathrooms. It was really quite pathetic.

When I finally freed myself from the pack of writhing human bodies, I slipped down the back path towards the diner to meet Sam and Chris. I shoved my hands in my pockets, my backpack with Sam's Tonka Truck banging against my back, it was becoming a nuisance. The streets were almost empty save a few businessmen their briefcases in one hand, cellphone glued to their ear in the other. I passed the usual shops, my reflection a ghastly pale creature that drug her feet across the cracked cement of the town sidewalks.

Hal's diner had quickly become my refuge from the bland life that I had come to call mine. I slid onto a red vinyl stool and laid my head down on the cool checkered counter.

"Kasey honey, everything alright." Bonnie's sweet southern voice drifted into my ears.

I grimaced but forced a smile on my face as I lifted my head, "just tired Bon, can I get a Mountain Dew and a chicken sandwich?" I needed food, my stomach was cramping.

She quickly wrote down my order with her fluffy sequined pink pen and slid it back to Mack the cook. Mack was a wiry old man with a cowgirl pinup on his right forearm; I had asked him about it once, he told me it was the same tattoo that his grandfather had. It was sweet in a way, I envied his relationship; I never knew my grandparents.

The bell over the diner rang and I spun in my stool, a curly black haired boy with shining blue eyes bust through the door and barreled straight towards me.

A smile erupted on my face and knelt down arms open, "Sammy my man how are you."

He giggled and threw himself into my arms, "KayKay, I mith you" he lisped in his one year old voice. He was a brilliant child, perhaps a genius in his own age.

I swung him around, "Don't make him puke Kasey" I deep voice interrupted our giggling.

"Chris" I laughed setting down Sam and threw my arms around the man that had followed Sam, His adoptive father, Chris Michaels. Chris was a well-built man, not as built as a certain dark eyed tattooed physicist; I frowned, why would I even pay attention to that.