This Should Feel Something Like Fire.

Said the King to the River.

Vic and I ran down to the kitchen to be greeted by Mike, my mother, Tony, and Jaime. Jaime was flirting up a storm with my mother, who was making eggs for everyone, while Tony and Mike were just looking at each other, equally creeped out, relived when we joined them. "Jaime! Stop making everyone uncomfortable!" I scolded, gesturing to the rest of the room. My mom was the only one who didn't look uncomfortable. Secretly, I think she loved the showers of compliments Jaime gave her more than she would ever admit. Jaime grinned even wider than he already was and winked.

"You know that's my job, Kells." I rolled my eyes at him, but otherwise ignored him as I went to get plates down for my mom. Vic took a seat next to Mike.

"I guess you guys have all gotten acquainted with Mike," I said over the clamor of blue plates knocking together. "And this is Vic, his brother. Vic, those are my two idiot friends Jaime and Tony. They'll be our ride to school."

"Thank god one of you finally got your license. Now I don't have to drive you all to school every morning." My mom joked. Even though the school was very close to our houses, we lived just outside the district, meaning a bus wouldn't come pick us up. That also meant that either mine, Tony's, or Jaime's mom would have to take us to school every morning. We normally walked home, but our parents knew they let us walk to school, most of the time we probably wouldn't reach the high school building in time for our first class, if at all. They made that mistake our freshman year. My mom usually ended up pulling the short straw on that deal, as Tony's mom worked erratic hours at the local hospital and Jaime's mom had a car that had the tendency to break down at the most inopportune times.

"Aw, come on. You know you love driving my charming face to school every morning." Jaime joked, and my mom hit him with a damp dish towel, resulting in him whining about his hair getting messed up, as if it could be any worse than it already was.

Soon enough, the eggs were finished and all five of us were scarfing them down, my mom shaking her head at us. She must have cooked a dozen eggs, and they were all gone within five minutes. Jaime and Tony knew they would get food if they came here, so they just stopped eating at their own houses for the most part. My mom was an excellent cook, and by now she knew to make extra because you never knew when Tony and Jaime - a.k.a. the Two Person Village - would stop by. They ate dinner with us probably three or four times a week. We didn't mind though. Both of their houses were pretty empty most of the time, with them both being only children with busy parents, and our house always seemed more lively with the two of them here. So much that it almost was weird for their voices not to be echoing off our walls.

Looking at the clock, my eyes widened. "Damn it, we're gonna be late!" I yelled, seeing that the first bell rang in fifteen minutes. My mom didn't really care if I cursed in front of her; she knew I did it behind her back, and she didn't really care too much in the first place. They were just words in her eyes: a different combination of the 26 letters that made up our entire language. All of us quickly dumped our plates in the sink with a quick thank you to my mom, grabbed our bags and whatever we needed for school, and ran out to Jaime's car. "Shotgun!" I yelled. I had to keep a bit of distance between Vic and myself, or we would probably jump each other.

Turning on the car, Madonna's strong voice blasted throughout the car. Vic, Mike, and I covered our ears while Tony laughed and Jaime's ears went red and he pulled out the CD as fast as he could. After the initial shock, we were all laughing at Jaime's music choice. Not because we were making fun of him, but because it was one of the last things you'd expect him to listen to. I didn't even know he knew a Madonna song.

"Shut up, all of you." Jaime said miserably, and, for once, we listened as I adjusted the music to our usual rock station, which happened to be playing Bring Me the Horizon's "Sleepwalking."