Crazy Days

2

My mother came and picked me up. She brought Dan our other older brother, well half brother in my case. He drove Liam's car back home as I went with mother in her car with actually functioning heating. She patted my hair all the way back and trusted me when I said that I was okay. She isn't a very talkative woman and would much rather sit on her couch with a glass of wine and play chess, than call one of her friends. 

As I got home everyone was all too caught up with Liam to even notice me sneaking away, and I couldn't be more pleased. Maybe I would have wanted for someone to come check on me at least once but with siblings like mine, you kind of have to demand attention to get any... 

An hour ago I had sat down in the bathroom, in the bathtub to be exact, with the shower on and my head in between my knees. I could slowly feel the hot water running out but I couldn't find it in me to move. I was too tired and too sad. My long hair was laying flat against my back and almost looked black as it was wet. I am no supermodel, nor am I out of shape. I am horrible at training on breaks but with a steady routine, I actually find it quite entertaining. 

I go horseback riding every Thursday and I play this thing called padel, every Monday. I refuse to work on weekends and I have a very high competitive level which makes me rather anxious every time I have a test coming up in school since I always want to get a high grade. It's a bad habit, mixed with a good one. I do well in school but I may say that it is probably not too healthy. 

"Melly you in there? I really need to pee!" My little sister says sleepily through the closed door on the other side of the blue-gray colored bathroom with white accents.

I take a deep breath before nicely asking Ness to walk downstairs. I then think of how Beckham used to be so funny with her. He used to tell her to go hide every time he wanted to spend time with me so that we could be alone. Once she even missed dinner because of him. I laugh a little before wanting to sob again. I can hear my mother talk to Nessy downstairs, before hearing her footsteps up the stairs.

"Melanie, sweetheart?" She says and knocks on the door. I can't find it in me to answer her so she just walks in. "Oh, sweetheart..." She says and sits down next to the tub. She pats my head again and then shivers from feeling the cold water so she turns it off.

"You must be so cold." She states and stands up to grab a towel. It must be almost four in the morning, but there is no lack of sleep whatsoever on her face. She is wearing skin-colored pantyhose and a dark gray pencil skirt. She usually also wears high black heels but they're off at the moment. She puts a warm towel around me and helps me out of the tub.

"Let's get you to bed, huh?"

I have a tendency to get depressed at night when I am tired and my mother knows it. Everything will be better if I just get some sleep. She walks with me out in the corridor and over to my bedroom. It's white and light blue mostly. Rather uncharacteristic and I hate it. It makes me feel small and powerless.

I climb into my cold sheets and she takes my towel. She kisses me goodnight on my forehead just before exiting. I can't sleep though. I am waiting for Liam. He always comes to say goodnight to me, no matter what. And just as suspected, a few minutes later he comes in and strokes my cheek.

"I will kill that son of a bitch" He whispers tenderly before walking out again. I am not quite sure of how he managed to find out but I know that even though he is sober enough to be able to walk straight, he is not sober enough to do anything to Beckham. Not now, at least.

A Sunday morning in the Dawson household isn't very hectic. Nessy wakes up around half past seven and plays with her dolls until eight, then she goes and wakes up our parents and beg for breakfast. Dan usually wakes up to the smell of bacon and breakfast is served around nine. Liam usually wakes up by two PM and my routines are probably the only ones that depend on what I was doing the night before.

If I accidentally stayed up a little after eleven PM then I was kind of bound to stay up until half past twelve, which means I'd wake up around eleven. But if I were to get to bed before then, if I had talked on the phone with a friend or something, I'd wake up around nine. I always slept for over ten hours on the weekends. Today though, I probably went to sleep a quarter past four AM and woke up by nine anyway. 

I made it for breakfast where I was served Dan's famous American pancakes and dad had run by the store to pick up some blueberries. Dan always made pancakes right before he went back to his dad's and college. His dad had a small house right by his campus and so he lived there for most of the year. A third of it, though, he lived with us. He could take some of his classes online and so he did.

Dan and I share the same mother, but not a father whereas Liam and I share both the same father and mother. Our genetic father died at war barely before I was even born. Mother remarried quickly after that, to Nick Dawson. He is who I grew up to call my father and Liam does the same, seeing as he is only a couple of years older than me. Nessy was born after that. 

She is now nine years old now and lives for watching some old show called Dance TV that used to air when my mother was a child. Dan and my father get along well, they always joke around and are fairly civil towards each other, whereas my mother and Dan's father can't even stand to be in the same city. It's quite funny whenever Dan organizes some big family thing. My mother is quite uptight and has a tendency to let loose whenever she is around Dan's father. They always end up screaming at each other, or like at his graduation, pushing each other into the pool. We all found it hilarious, even my father. 

My mother, as well as Dan, has pitch black hair whereas Liam and I have dark brown alike the man that has become out adoptive father. Nessy has really red hair we sometimes joke that she got exchanged as a baby but my mother does not appreciate that. 

Around one PM Dan leaves in his red ford and mom gets all 'mama bear' and tries to make us all go out on a family picnic, but Nessy is going to her friend's house and Liam will probably be asleep for the rest of the day. She ends up convincing me to come shopping with her, and we end up buying five bags of clothes for her and a few summer outfits for me, seeing as the weather's getting warmer by the day.

Monday's are quite different. I am the first one up and am quickly out for a rum I hate running but one time I just woke up angry and ran around the block and came back happy, so I keep doing that to keep my cool.

Nessy is the last one up and most of the time she has to eat her sandwich in the car. Liam just basically wakes up and walks to the car and he's done. I usually make smoothies in the morning so he'll grab some of that and then just sleeps his way through the day. Mom is never home in the mornings. She leaves for work at six AM and is home by three PM so it's usually dad who drives us to school on his way to his firm. Well, not 'his' but the one he works at.

I meet my friend Laura by the lockers and we usually hang out up until lunch break where she goes to work at the library and I go to Liam and his friends, consisting of Lisa, a bunch of people I don't care about and Jane and Marco. Jane and Marco are twins and also my friends. Lisa is actually new to the group. She used to sit alone in a corner with a book and read all the time until Liam just walked up to her one day and sat down next to her. He wouldn't say a word to her until she decided to make conversation and now we're here.

Beckham usually sits by a table with football players on the other side of the cafeteria and he probably would've today as well, if it weren't for the fact that he was going on a ski trip. I was supposed to join them but... We broke up. He cheated and I left. Done and over. I used to love those ski trips because his cousin would always come to join us, and I kind of got a lot of attention. Mostly from Beckham but also from people in general. I liked that, being in the center for once. Although I wish it could be like that more of the time, but that's just not how life works. I stay on my side of a room and so does he. It's always been like that, it's just how it works.
A week went by pretty quickly actually and all of a sudden it was Thursday. The day Beckham would be back at school...