On Our Own

Chapter 2

Mondays always sucked, but a Monday during the school year was the worst.

With so many kids running around, chaos typically ensued. There had yet to be a peaceful morning in the house since Leah was here. Alarms set at different times would go blaring up and down the hallway at any time between five and seven in the morning. Toddlers crying at the noise, people rushing about, it was hectic to say the least.

Worst of all was the bathroom. We had five of them, but one was Monica and Jess only. The other four were up for grabs, but it was a battle for who was going to get to one first. I always tried to get up early, but there were days where I had to brush my teeth at the kitchen sink. Today though, I managed to get to one before they all filled up. I then changed into some gray jeans and a black hoodie. I pulled my silver hair in a high ponytail and got my bag before going downstairs.

I began helping Jess get breakfast together while Monica packed lunches for some of the house's more pickier eaters who would not eat the food served in the school's cafeteria.

It was quiet for a while which was never a good sign. I risked looking up at Jess and Monica from the cereal I was eating and immediately heard yelling from upstairs. We looked between each other and I sighed.

"I got it," I muttered and quickly went upstairs to the third floor where the screams seemed to be coming from.

"Hey, what's going on?" I yelled at the boys rolling around on the floor wrestling each other.

They both ignored me, but I finally managed to pull them apart and separated them.

"Jack stole my sweatshirt," Matt yelled once I got between the two.

"But Matt stole my baseball cap!" Jack yelled back.

I sighed and looked around, everyone else was already downstairs except the person in the bathroom up here and Carter who was watching quietly near the bookshelves.

"Look if you both stole something from each other, then you either both return the stuff or just let the other wear it. You're both eleven, act like it," I said tiredly.

The boys glared at each other for a moment before giving in and offering small apologies before going downstairs. I nodded to Carter who followed with a book under his arm.

We joined everyone at the table and when we finished breakfast, we went to the garage. Where another part of the morning that made things difficult began: seating. Currently there were ten of us including Jess that had to go to school. Which meant I drove one car and she drove the other, the problem was who got to go with who.

Finally, after five minutes of switching and moving around we were all settled. After a quick fight over the front seat which James won, Jack, Matt, and Carter were all in the back seat of my car and Jess had Molly, Nina, Anna, and Casey in her car. After more bickering over the radio station, we took off five minutes after Jess.

"Hey so are you going through with the adoption?" I asked James, as I reached for my coffee.

"Yeah, I talked to the social worker, she's doing the paperwork, it should go through in about two months then I can live with them, then in a year the social worker will come make sure everything's good, you know the usual formalities," he said.

"That's great!"

I was glad he was getting a chance to have a family, he was almost sixteen, if he had stayed any longer he would've been like me. Angry and sad, over everything I was robbed of. Counting down the days until I could leave in the hopes of a brighter future.

When we arrived at school, I parked the car and James got out to find his friends while the rest of us waited in the car until we heard the first bell.

When the bell did ring, everyone finally got out of the car. Matt and Jack went off towards the middle school building, while Carter and I went towards the high school. James was a junior, I was a senior, and Carter was a freshman, but he took some advanced classes with me. Clearly, he was the smartest kid in the school.