My Purgatory Hell

Chapter 3

"Don't make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up."

– Thomas J. Watson

The rest of the day was very uneventful. I gave up my attempts to attend the party with Hayley tomorrow, especially since I was in charge of making a detour to drop my brother off at his friend's house.

I was in denial the next day about going to the party that night. Part of me wished I worked the next day, but I had the weekend off. Again, I had to remind myself that I wasn't getting out of the party. I've already tried. Instead, I needed to look forward to the party. Not dread it. I took the opportunity to sleep in until mid-morning. Austin woke me up when he creaked open the door to check in about me giving him a ride.

"Hey, are you still bringing me today?" my brother asked.

"Is it necessary to wake me up?" I groaned. I definitely wasn't a morning person. He was lucky I was using my pillow, otherwise I would have chucked it at him like yesterday. I turned on my side to give him a dark look.

My sibling raised his hands in surrender. "Sorry. I just wanted to check. Plus it is, like, 10," Austin stated matter-of-factly.

"So?" The word came out grouchier than I intended it to be, but I was still waking up.

Austin crossed his arms and raised his brow at my tone of voice. "Sometimes I don't know about you." He paused slightly before continuing, "Is tonight still a go?"

"Yes. Does Jack know?" Jack, our younger brother, usually threw fits when it came to being left out. I was highly suspicious that it was due to Mom and Dad spoiling him, which made Austin and I jealous. I'm not sure I wanted to deal with one of Jack's tantrums, but Austin pulled the Mom card yesterday so we would have to sneak out without him knowing. Typical.

"Not yet. Mom said she had that covered," Austin promised. When Mom claimed she had it covered, she usually meant don't mention it. She loved to avoid conflict until the very last minute.

I groaned. "Right." I pulled the pillow out from under my head to put it over my face. "I'm still taking you," I told him through the pillow. I heard the door creak as Austin closed the door behind him and left me to silence. 

After Austin left my room, I fell back asleep for a while. When I woke up again, my bladder was screaming and my stomach was complaining. Sighing, I decided to throw in the towel for sleeping, and I pushed myself out of bed. I decided to ease my bladder first, so I went to the bathroom. I looked outside to see the boys playing in the mound of sand that was our sandbox. Dad was mowing the lawn, and Mom was nowhere in sight. Once I finished up in the bathroom, I made myself a bowl of cereal.

I was halfway through my bowl of frosted flakes before the door opened and disrupted my peace.

"I was playing with that, Jack," Austin informed Jack in a patient, but somewhat strained tone of voice. "Give it back." I glanced over my shoulder to see Jack had a sandbox toy in his hand. There was a trail of sand behind him.

"It's mine!" Jack whined and stomped his feet.

"Jack, you aren't supposed to have that in here," I pointed out in a motherly manner. I knew Jack wasn't going to clean up his own mess, and I wanted to contain the mess as much as possible.

"No." Jack was also in the disagreement stage. He liked to disagree with everyone.

"Jack, go outside," I demanded in a nice way.

"No." My frustration was getting the better end of me. I was not in the mood to deal with Jack or his mess.

"Mom!" Austin yelled. Mom was in the room within a minute and I was thankful she had taken control of the situation. If Jack was going to listen to anyone, which was slim, it would be her. Her eyes took in the situation before they looked Jack in the eyes.