I'm Writing This For You

Chapter 2 || Good Morning, Boston

I awoke to the sound of my mother's bombastic voice ringing through my ears. "Get up, it's time for you to get ready for school!"

I opened my eyes and looked at her. "In five minutes," I replied. I proceeded to close my eyes again, but this ended up being a terrible idea. She took my wrist and began dragging me towards the edge of the bed.

She continued to speak. "I did not raise you so you could ignore your elders, get up!" My body tried to resist her firm grasp on my wrist, but it was no use. For a woman who is only 5'1", your grandmother possessed Herculean strength. Although I was fairly skinny, which didn't really help the situation.

As I felt my body shift closer towards the edge of the bed, I figured it was time for me to open my eyes again. I wanted to avoid any broken bones that would result from me slamming into the floor. Here's a word of advice – personal injury is one of the few things in life that isn't worth a few extra seconds of sleep.

"Okay, okay. I'm up," I replied, in a monotone voice. See, appeasing your grandmother also proved to be a Herculean task. She was very adept at picking up fake enthusiasm, which is the only other emotion I could ever muster that early in the morning.

However, talking with minimal inflection allowed me to disguise my true feelings of hatred. She loosened her grip on my wrist, and began speaking in a much softer tone. "I know it's not been easy for you, but hang in there. You'll make new friends here, I'm sure of it."

I nodded, but I didn't really agree with her statement. Making new friends was a challenge I wasn't up to face. I wondered if I could trust these new friends with the problems I faced, and if they shared my interests. Would they be as devoted to video games as I was? This internal monologue plagued my thoughts for the last two weeks, but I quickly concluded that the answer to these questions was a resounding no.

As my mother left the room, I got up from my bed. My feet landed on the soft, grey carpet beneath them. Strangely enough, the soft embrace of the carpet still felt less inviting than the cold, hardwood floor at the old apartment. As I walked towards the bathroom, I noticed a light shining through a crevice in the door. I saw a small figure standing next to the door, which I recognized as your Aunt Isabella.

 Since moving into the Giordano household, I had to deal with two annoying stepsisters, and it was a change I wasn't quite comfortable handling quite yet. 

"Hey Isabella," I said as I walked closer to her. Out of the Giordano family, she was the only one I could stand, at least initially.

"Hi Malik," she replied. As she turned towards me, the sunlight radiated off of her tanned skin. Her brown eyes lit up as we began to talk.

"I'm guessing you're waiting for Rachel?"

"I'm surprised you need to ask," she replied, rolling her eyes in disgust. "She said she'd take 20 minutes, but in Rachel time, that's like an hour."

I laughed. I decided to divert the topic of conversation away from her older sister. "So, are you excited to start the sixth grade?"

"It's whatever, I just hope I get a good teacher. I heard that Mrs. Akintola gives out candy and has field trips to the movies, so I want her to be my teacher."

"I would love it if my high school still offered field trips to the movies," I replied. "Enjoy it while it lasts, kid."

Her expression became slightly more serious, as she said, "Is high school as stressful as Rachel says?"

"It's only stressful if you want to go to Harvard or something like Rachel does. But for everyone else, it's not that stressful," I replied, while smiling at her. I was being sincere of course, as I didn't think school was stressful at that point in my life. But, it wasn't that intriguing either, which made it difficult for me to invest my time into it.