Finding Your Person

Chapter 17

It was Friday, the morning of the big game. I laid in bed just thinking about today. I was so nervous and terrified, but also extremely excited. I watched the clock change, and before I knew it, I was still in bed after forty minutes of me thinking about today. My door burst open, and Aiden jumped in bed right next to me.
"You aren't up yet?" he asked.
"No, I need to get up," I responded.
"Are you okay, Mas?" He sounded concerned.
"Yeah, I'm just nervous for my game, that's all." I stared up at my ceiling.
"I don't mean your game. I meant with everything else." He looked at me with one of those pouting smiles, but I knew he was just worried about me.
"Come here." I grabbed him and pulled him close to me. "Why wouldn't I be okay when I have the best little brother in the world?"
"I know I'm amazing." he laughed and then continued, "but I know I'm not Brady, but I love you just the same. And I'll always be here for you."
"Well aren't you just fifty years older than your age. So mature." We laughed. And then I kissed him on the forehead. "I love you too, Aiden, and I'll always be here for you."
"Cool. Now stop kissing me and get your butt downstairs. Dad made a special breakfast for you, and Mom is insisting that we don't eat it until you are down there. I'm a growing boy, Mas. I need food, so get up." He hopped up off the bed and stood in front of me, instructing me to get up. I couldn't help but think, and there was the little crazy, sarcastic, younger brother of mine.
He began to walk out the door, and just before he left, he turned to look back at me.
"You know, I really never liked him. Not my favorite person." And then he walked out. I couldn't stop laughing to myself. How was my little brother so smart and witty. He had been so mature for his age; I'm pretty sure he was more mature than half the guys in my grade.
I quickly got up and made my way to the bathroom. I threw up my hair and washed my face and brushed my teeth. I did my normal mascara and covered up a few blemishes on my face with concealer.
The nice thing about being an athlete on game day is you never have to find an outfit. The team usually would wear our jerseys or some form of matching attire, like one of our many matching T-shirts. Today we decided to wear our red jersey to school. Even though we had a home game and we always wear our white jersey, no one wanted to take the chance of staining the white jersey. I put on our team sweatpants. They were solid black with our school's logo embroidered on the top right.
I decided to just wear my hair up in a ponytail. I took one look in the mirror, shrugged my shoulders, and gave myself a little encouraging head nod. 'I can do this,' is what I told myself.
I grabbed my bag and began to make my way downstairs. I could smell the pancakes from halfway down the steps. My dad always made them for special occasions like birthdays, holidays, first day of school, last day of school, Sundays if we didn't go out to breakfast after church. Okay, come to think of it, my dad made them pretty often, but it didn't bug me. His chocolate chip pancakes were my absolute favorite.
I walked into my kitchen to see Aiden sitting at the table with a fork and knife ready in his hands. My dad's back was faced towards me but I saw him attempt to flip a pancake, and my mom had started laughing at him as she walked over to grab the cooked pancakes.
"Finally, I thought I was going to have to eat the pancakes that dad dropped on the floor," Aiden said, staring at the plate of pancakes in my mom's hands.
"Over twenty years of making you guys pancakes, you'd think I would have learned to properly flip them," My dad said, turning towards me.
"Good morning, honey," my mom said, putting the plate of pancakes down in front of Aiden and began to walk over to me.
"You ready for your big game today?" my mom said, giving me a big hug.
"Nervous." I took a breath in. "But I'm excited," I added.
"You're going to do great, kiddo! I'm so proud of you, and how hard you've been working," my dad said, reaching over the table to give me a plate of chocolate chip pancakes.
"Thanks, Dad." I grabbed the plate, and walked over to Aiden who had been finishing his first plate of pancakes. It looked like he was quickly moving on to his second.
"Slow down, killer," I said, ruffing up his hair and pulling out the chair to sit next to him.
"Listen, I've been up for two hours waiting for this moment," Is what I believed he had said. I was having trouble making out the words with all the food in his mouth.
I began eating, thinking about today, when my phone buzzed.
It was a message from Liam. It said, 'Good luck today! Can't wait to watch you kick butt."
"Why are you smiling at your phone?" Aiden looked at me with a weird expression wiped across his face.
"Nothing," I said, knowing that Liam was the reason I was smiling.
Aiden rolled his eyes, but couldn't help but smile. It was nice knowing that, regardless of guys like Garrett, I had some pretty amazing men in my life that truly cared about me.
"Alright, well, I have to get going to work. I'll see you at your game." My dad walked over, kissing Aiden and me on the top of our heads. "Good luck, kiddo," my dad said, walking away only to turn back to say he loved us.