Before We Shatter

01 | A Walk Through The Rain

I slam my pencil down on my desk, rattling the wood surface. "This makes no sense!" I practically yell at my brother, Jace.

He looks up from his phone in surprise, lowers the two legs of his chair that were previously in the air. He sighs dismissively. "Calm down," he tells me. "Try again. You'll get it."

He tousles his blond locks contentedly, like those words of inspiration are enough to help me. He probably thinks his hair is more important than his sister's math grade.

"Yeah, right," I mutter, kicking a leg of our bunk bed stubbornly. The rickety old frame looks like it'll crack at any second. Maybe that would cure my stress.

I need to break something. My mind has been set on fire. And I mean a full blown wildfire.

I stare at my worksheet full of undone math problems, wishing it would disappear into thin air.

I hope for stupid things.

I tear a hand through my already tangled hair. "I don't know how to figure out the hippopotamus!"

"Okay, first," Jace starts with a twitching smile, "it's the hypotenuse, not the hippopotamus." He stifles a laugh. My face heats up, but I just glare at him. "And second," he continues, "you're never going to get through the school year with that attitude."

I hate common sense.

His deep brown eyes show nothing but amusement as I continue kicking the bed. He just leans back in his chair and flicks his eyes to his phone screen. I roll my eyes.

I pick up my pencil and intentionally break the led tip. "Whoops," I drawl, pulling Jace's attention back to me. "Guess I can't do it now anyway."

I start to walk out the doorway of our shared bedroom, but he grabs a section of my shirt with his available hand and pulls me back in, nearly tearing the thin fabric in the process.

Boys are certainly delinquents.

The floorboards creak as I stumble back into the cluttered room.

It's really small. Suffocating, really. A bunk bed pushed against the side of the wall, a desk shoved into the corner. A window is wedged between them, plus the closet beside a dusty bookshelf full of dully colored volumes.

"Uh uh," he says dejectedly as his phone buzzes with incoming texts. He pulls a pen out of his plaid flannel. "Here you go."

I take the pen and twirl it around my fingers, then plop back into my chair. "We're not allowed to use pen on our assignments."

"You are now," Jace tells me with his eyes still glued to his phone screen.

"Riiiiight," I push out, tracing my sneaker along floorboards. My white converse are stained with mud and grime far past looking clean. "According to who?

"Me."

Yep, definitely a delinquent.

"You're not my teacher."

"Sure I am."

His phone must be frying his brain. So I listen to instinct and—to no one's surprise—ignore him.

I glance out the window to see cars bustling and kids running down the sidewalks. Curtains fly in the autumn wind, plastic bags float through the polluted air. I dream of the soft breeze carrying my worries to a far off land where they evaporate into thin air.

Wouldn't that be nice?

"Looks like it's gonna rain," I draw out while watching the low-hanging storm clouds shift in the windy air.