Deeper Than The Skin

Chapter 1- Morning Nosebleed

Grace

Give me a pen
Call me
Mr. Benzedrine
But don't let the doctor in
I wanna blow off steam

I awoke to the beautiful sound of 2008 Fall Out Boy blasting from my phone.

It was the best alarm ever.

I rolled over, swimming in my covers, and pressed the home button on my iPhone 5s to check the time.

I squinted through the light. 7:01.

With a sigh, I flopped back down on my bed. The birds were chirping outside my second-story window, and the sunlight was peeking through a gap in my gossamer curta- wait, gossamer curtains?!

Alarm flooded through my body and I sat bolt upright.
It took me a second to remember.

This wasn't my Gordonvale farmhouse - I was in the city. The capital of New South Wales, in fact. I sighed heavily and flopped back down on the squeaky mattress, curled up in my covers.

20 Dollar Nose Bleed ended and I knew that I had to get up. I reluctantly swung myself out of the creaking bed, felt my bare feet touch the cool wooden floorboards, and stretched. A yawn escaped my mouth as I bent my back like my old cat Pickles in the morning.

My mother had laid out my new uniform on a hook from my door. I frowned at it. I didn't want to put it on - it meant making it official that I no longer went to Gordonvale State High School.

Have you ever wanted to disappear?

I sighed. My alarm had restarted. It was Fall Out Boy telling me I had to. I had to move on.

I grabbed the uniform and headed towards the bathroom to shower.

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I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror on my cupboard, frowning at my attire. The tartan green, ankle-length skirt and pale green blouse were too different to my former school uniform for my liking. The skirt was stiff and the fabric of the blouse itched.

As part of uniform policy, I'd pulled my hair back into a tight ponytail high up my head. My green nails glinted in the morning light that shine through the gossamer curtains I had pulled over the windows.

I traipsed down the stairs.
"Gracie!" squealed my younger brother, Dylan, from the lounge room. A smile tickled my lips and eventually moulded them into an expression of happiness. Even when I felt like this, my three-year-old brother could always make me smile.

"Dylan!" I called back in a high-pitched voice. I heard him giggle his infectious laugh and scramble to his feet, and, in the process, inevitably knocking over whatever was within ten feet of him. Never in all my life had I met someone as clumsy as my brother. I chuckled.

Dylan came bounding around the corner to where I stood at the bottom of the stairs. I grinned and bent my knees, scooping him up into my arms as he charged into me. The little boy was small in figure, just as I was and always will be, but he definitely had a more rowdy side to him. I'd always been rather docile as I child, reading under the oak in our backyard until dark, playing my guitar or listening to music. Dylan wasn't like that.

"Hey buddy!" I said to him, holding him up to my face. "How are you?"

"Good," he mumbled, sticking his tongue out. He looked around for a Moment, squirming in my arms, before his huge, chocolate brown eyes widened further as he looked at me seriously. "You're wearing a skirt," he said in a low voice.