The Bad Boy and the Brainiac

Chapter 4: Even the Truth Can't Stop the Guilt

A/N: Listen to this song while you read if you'd like. I thought it related to the topic of the chapter, and it's Linkin Park.

I wake up with a pounding headache, lying on the cold tile floor of the bathroom. My whole body aches as I stand up, and suddenly I feet dizzy. I grip the edge of the sink to prevent myself from collapsing once again.

Eventually the feeling passes and I make my way to the kitchen for a glass of water. Blake isn't getting released from the hospital till tomorrow, so the house is empty. My mom is at the hospital still, working yet another graveyard shift.

I look at the clock and see that it is 7:23 a.m.; I have exactly seven minutes to get ready before Kylie will be here to pick me up for school. I quickly brush my teeth while scrambling to put my textbooks in my backpack. I then grab the clothes nearest to me, which turn out to be sweats and my Arrow shirt, and put them on.

I run a brush through my tangled hair, and quickly eat an orange before Kylie honks outside my front door, announcing that she is here and tired of waiting for me.

When I get into her car, she greets me with, "Took you long enough." She examines the clothes I'm wearing and grimaces when she sees that I put no effort whatsoever into what I'm wearing. "I thought I taught you better than this! What did I say about wearing sweats to school!"

"Don't wear sweats at school," I mumble.

"I'll let it slide today, but if you're dressed like this again tomorrow I'll make you wear a dress."

I groan. "Ok, I get it. Message received."

Satisfied, she turns up the radio and starts singing along loudly to an old One Direction song. She may be my best friend, but even I will admit that her singing tortures my ears. The second the car stops, I rush out and run straight inside the school. My poor ears have suffered enough this morning.

I just want today to go by quickly, but life never seems to allow what you want to happen. Instead, every teacher seems to drone on about the most boring topics today, and what's worse is that I'm not even retaining any of the information. I take notes, but they're messy and make no sense.

When the bell rings announcing that it's finally lunch, I breathe a sigh of relief. Jason tries to cheer me up by telling me a stupid joke.

"What's the best thing about Switzerland?" He asks me.

I shrug, not really in the mood to laugh.

"I don't know, but the flag is a big plus!" When he sees that I don't laugh, he nudges me and says, "Get it, because the flag is literally a plus sign."

I shake my head and mumble, "I get it."

We get to our lunch table and I plop down into a chair, and then proceed to rest my head on the table. I feel someone kick me in the shins, and look up to glare at the person who had the audacity to annoy me. It's no surprise that the idiot who did it is Cole.

He looks at me, shrugs, and says, "Stop being depressed."

I'm about to say something when Courtney comes over. She gives Cole a flirtatious look before turning to me and saying sarcastically, "How's our little selfish Lexi over here? Feeling no remorse over what she did to her brother I see."

I see Kylie and Jason give me a questioning look, but I say nothing. I ignore Courtney, and bury my head under my arms that are currently resting on the table as she says, "And to think your brother actually cares about you, he's stupid. He doesn't realize that you don't give a shit about him."