Change of Plans

38|All Kinds of Talks

Aidans P.O.V.

Sunday, April 30th

I wake up to the sun shining through my blinds onto my face. I squint causing pain to shoot through my face. Shit.

I groan loudly and sit up in my bed, swinging my legs over the side. I sit there for several seconds before finally getting up and going to the bathroom. As soon as I see my appearance I grimace. I look terrible.

My eye, as I suspected, is now a painful shade of black and blue. The bandages that cover the cuts around my face desperately need to be changed. My cheek is bruised just like my eye. My knuckles are sore and they have started to scab over. The only improvement is that my eyebrow and lip aren't as swollen as yesterday.

I close my eyes and sigh, the pounding of last nights headache still very prominent. I reach into the medicine cabinet underneath the sink to grab the first aid kit and some ibuprofen. With everything I need, I go to town on my face. I start by taking three ibuprofen with water so it starts working as soon as possible. After that I take off all of the bandages and gently wash my face with water and follow with antiseptic wipes to clean them all off.

Nostalgia washes over me as I go through the motions and I hate it. I hate that this is so normal to me and that it's something I've had to deal with many, many times before.

All I can do is sigh and continue to clean my face. I decide to only put on butterfly bandages above my left eyebrow as it's the worst cut and needs to stay closed. I keep everything else uncovered to let them breath or whatever the hell a smart doctor would say.

Downstairs I hear my siblings fighting over what channel to watch on the T.V. while my mom tries to make them get along.

Shit...my mom.

She's going to be so upset. Why do I keep doing this to her? She doesn't deserve any of the shit I put her through.

I look at my battered expression in the mirror once more and decide to go downstairs to face my mom.

The journey to the living room is painfully slow as I step down a stair probably every two minutes. I'm dreading seeing my mom, I can't handle disappointing her again.

Eventually, I reach the bottom stair but I keep my head down as I go to the empty kitchen by the living room.

I make my way to the cabinet with the bowls in it first and then grab some Lucky Charms, Harpers favorite. "Hey honey, we didn't see you last night. You were dead asleep when we came home from dinner" I hear my mom come up behind me. She ruffles my hair from behind and moves to my right side. She leans against the counter on her back and looks at me. I look the other way quickly, grabbing a spoon out of a drawer.

"Oh ya, it was a long day and I think I just needed to sleep. How was dinner?" I ask trying to steer the conversation away from me. I notice that Avery and Truman aren't fighting over the T.V. like they were earlier.

"It was really good, we went to that Italian place down the road that Truman likes so much."

"Oh ya," I smile even though she can't see it, "I remember him telling me about that." I start pouring the cereal into my bowl.

"Don called me last night." My mom says out of the blue. My heart stops and I set the Lucky Charms down.

Oh no.

"Mom..." I start to say slowly, still not looking at her.

"He said that you payed him a visit at the bar."

"I-" I try to continue.

"He said we should have a talk... I haven't heard from him in a while so I figured it was serious." My moms voice is calm but I know how anxious she must be to know what I did this time. "He wouldn't say anything else."