Reality Check

The Math War

A/N- OMG 1K reads!!!!!!! I'm actually freaking out over this, thank you SO much to everyone reading this, and the people leaving comments are entirely making my day :))) Happy New Years ilysm!!

Hometown (by Sheppard)

"You are my hometown. Where I can slow down. We got it good, we got it all figured out . . ."

___

It was a full week since Owen had returned home, and he was once again working on schoolwork, just like he'd been doing for the past four days. During three out of those days, he'd been able to sneak out to attend the book club with Bethany on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. After the hour long meetings, he, Bethany and Kiel would hang out at Bethany's house for a few hours.

At first, Owen had been reluctant to sneak out after his trip to the book club on Saturday. But he'd learned his mother's work schedule pretty well, so she normally either worked in the afternoons or the mornings. It depended on the day, which was why Owen had to keep a careful watch on his mother when she left for work.

He always did some studying as well as re-reading his favorite books in the mornings, and in the afternoons he'd walk and play with Bark Vader, his new dog. Once Bethany came up with the idea to meet at her house after school, that became something Owen could look forward to. He also loved the book club meetings, because he got to talk about books, which were his favorite thing in the entire world.

He didn't understand why Bethany didn't fully express her love for the meetings as much as Owen did. Maybe because she wasn't friends with any of the other kids, aside from the girl named Liz. He wasn't friends with any of them either, but all awkwardness faded away when he got to talk about books, so he hoped he was making a good impression.

He knew he wasn't supposed to go out without asking his mother, but it was becoming easier to sneak out and he never got caught. Since he didn't fully trust Bark Vader to stay home alone with supervision, he brought the dog along to Bethany's house. He also suspected Spike might be plotting against Bark Vader, so he wasn't one-hundred percent comfortable with leaving his two pets by themselves. Also, both Bethany and Kiel loved Owen's new dog, so they weren't against the extra company.

During the three times Owen, Bethany, and Kiel had hung out this week after school at Bethany's house, they'd spent majority of the time either sharing stories, playing with Bark Vader, watching funny videos on the Internet, playing board games, or — in Bethany and Owen's case — reading books together. It was the most fun Owen had in a while. They hadn't been able to go anywhere else besides Bethany's house, since they didn't have much time after school and places like the movies or the mall would have to wait until the weekend. Owen desperately wanted to go to the library, but that was the last place he'd be able to go, given the fact that his mother would be there.

Today was another day that his mother worked an afternoon shift, which meant she'd was helping Owen during the morning with his studies. When she wasn't at work, that was normally what she did, only because he tended to get bored when he was studying alone. There was plenty of school he'd missed, and he hardly understood many of the harder, more advanced subjects. The only thing that made sense was English, which didn't have much to study from anyway.

He sat at the kitchen table, longingly staring out the window as his mother helped him with eighth grade level math. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't focus on his work. Raindrops splattered in heaps against the window's glass, forming different shapes and making it easy for Owen's imagination to run wild. Currently, he was imagining the raindrops as birds, flying from tree to tree as it slid down the window.