The Ivy Academy [COMPLETED]

Chapter 1

TWO WEEKS EARLIER......

Now here you go again, you say
You want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down
It's only right that you sho--

I slammed the stop button on my alarm. "Dreams" used to be my soul song, but setting it as my wake-up alarm wasn't a great idea. Usually I could keep it playing until the chorus before I decided to get up out of bed, but something was different about this morning. Something was unusual.

I checked my phone to see if I got any text messages from my adult sister, emails from school, or news updates on the end of the world. Instead, I found something much worse than all three combined. 

Today was Friday the 13th. No wonder I felt so awful this morning; I couldn't even get through one of my favorite songs. Crap, I thought. It's December, and it's the 13th, which made today my birthday. Yes, I was aware that most people would rejoice at this news. They would probably even call it a pleasant surprise. But not me.

Birthdays in my house meant 4-dollar cakes from Walmart and a couple cheap balloons if I was "lucky." It also meant at least a weekend long visit from Stevie, my sister. Now, Stevie wasn't the worst, not as bad as my other siblings could be, but her visiting just meant long monologues about how great it was to be a 26-year-old gal in the city. She always said "gal", like she was some character in a 90's chick flick. She wasn't. And neither were we. Everything around me reminded me of how things weren't easy and probably wouldn't be until I was, say, 26, like my sister.

The ripped pillow I slept on every night reminded me of the fact that my mother couldn't afford to buy a new pack of pillowcases. The Justin Bieber poster on my wall reminded of the hole behind it, how bugs had chewed their way through it, and instead of getting a new wall, I received a simple poster to cover up the problem. We weren't poor, but that was easy to forget when I saw the luxuries that my other friends had.

I heard a pan drop in the kitchen, followed by a short shriek. That could have been my mother, making us breakfast, Cassie, who at a year younger than me, was just as clumsy I was, or Mac, the "sweet" 6-year-old that only I was convinced was evil.

I hope it wasn't my mom dropping breakfast; I was starving. My rumbling stomach confirmed that. I jumped out of bed (more like stumbled) and walked into the hall. The sweet, sweet smell of bacon wafted throughout, a comforting reminder that my empty belly was soon to be filled.

All of the doors to my siblings' rooms were closed. My mom's bedroom door was opened, which meant she was the only one up.

I shuffled into the kitchen. When I looked up, my heart sank.

Stevie.

She squatted on the ground, cautiously picking up bacon from the linoleum floor and into her hand. She looked up.

"Rhiannon!" She beamed.

"Stevie...." I returned, a little less enthusiastic. "I go by Rhi now, to acquaintances."

"I'm wouldn't call myself an acquaintance. I'm your sister." She scoffed playfully.

I squatted down next to her and helped her pick up the remaining pieces of bacon.

"Well, I hardly see you anymore," I said to her as I picked up a particularly hot piece of food.

"I know it seems like I can forget about you guys, but I'm really just very busy now. You know, with all the New York hustle-bustle." Oh great. Talk about living in New York some more, why don't you. "But I don't want to bore you."

"Someone got the hint," I said dryly.

"Yeah, and someone is an idiot." She glared at me.

This was our thing. I insulted her, then she insulted me. We loved it. Stevie wasn't the sibling I got along with the best, but we were definitely the closest. We finished picking up the former breakfast and threw its remains into the trash can.