Day and Night | ✓

Chapter 1 - Rough Edit ✓

Harper

Every morning, the contraption that I believe was sent from the pits of hell itself wakes me up at 7:30 A.M for college, and every morning I contemplate whether or not throwing my phone at my bedroom door to silence the jarring tone would satisfy me and my never-ending quest for just five more minutes of sleep.

Once the haze in my brain had cleared I lay in bed for a few more moments and listened to the sounds around me. It's become a somewhat ritual of mine over the past few years. I've started to appreciate the little things in life a lot more ever since my Grandad passed away. I've learnt that even the simplest of sounds like the songs from a bird needs to be appreciated because one day that bird might not be here to sing.

Getting out of bed and throwing on my fluffy dressing gown, I made my way downstairs. Following the scent of warm toast, I find my Nan in the kitchen making breakfast.

Despite my protests of not wanting food in the morning, she still insists on making me breakfast.

"Good morning, love." She calls to me as I enter the kitchen. I smile at her affectionate greeting and make my way over to place a kiss on her cheek .

"Morning, Nan. What have I told you about making my breakfast?" I scold teasingly as I reach into the fridge for the orange juice.

"I know you're perfectly capable of feeding yourself dear; you remind me that you're an adult on a daily basis." She counters with a stern look on her face. It was a daily routine for us, I'd jokingly complain about her making breakfast and she'd scold me for it. It'd quickly become my favorite part of the morning.

After the toast had been covered in an unholy amount of butter and nutella it was devoured. I spent a few minutes with her before I had to leave to start getting ready. Not that my "look" required any effort whatsoever.

Recently however I began to notice that she was looking more tired than usual, exhausted even. Her smiles weren't quite reaching her eyes anymore and the woman that used to be so full of light and joy had been replaced by a shell of her former self - and the cracks were beginning to show. We both know why she's so exhausted, but we don't ever speak about it. It was the giant elephant in the room that was always there but the heartache was still too fresh for the both of us to acknowledge that we were both struggling in our own way.

Three years ago, when Grandad passed away, his death not only left a gaping hole in both our hearts, it also left a pile of hospital and funeral bills that we're struggling to pay, some may say it was self-inflicted taking out pay-day loans and emptying various saving accounts along with my Nan draining her pension to place him in a private hospital and recruiting the help of some very good albeit very expensive doctors we did all we could to try and save him but sadly in the end it was all for nothing. If it weren't for my job, keeping up with the payments to the various loan companies would be next to impossible, and we'd have lost the house months ago.

Lost in troubling thoughts on the state of not only myself and my nan's future but the future of the entire house we were living in, I threw on a pair of old skinny jeans and a jumper. I tried my best to style my hair in a somewhat cute messy bun. Looking at my reflection in the mirror, the final result doesn't look as bad as I thought it would and deemed it acceptable for the day ahead.

Grabbing my glasses from the vanity and my converse from under the bed, I jogged downstairs and made my way towards the door. "I'm leaving, Nan. I'll see you when I get home. I love you, bye!" I shout as I grab my back from its place by the door.

The walk to college was only a short 10-minute walk from where I live, and it always gave me time to think about things. I began to wonder if picking up a few more shifts at work would help; the extra money would certainly come in handy but working two weeknights alongside the three shifts I was already doing would be a killer for sure. Regardless I mentally make a note to ask Jack if there are any extra shifts available when I see him later.