Falling For An Inmate

Chapter 4: Chess

CHAPTER 4

Arya Crawford

Today looked like a hideous day. The sun was shining at me through the open kitchen window, hideously. I could tell there was barely any wind blowing since the leaves on the trees were as still as death, which was hideous. Even the blooming sunflower sitting on the windowsill was hideous.

Basically, everything was hideous.

Not really. I had just slept really late the previous night, researching different colleges and jobs and their requirements for my prison mentees, so I was just cranky. In actuality, I was being hideous. But ofcourse I chose to blame everything else instead. I even looked hideous.

I was wearing my dad's old t-shirt, which was really big on my slender frame and my ugly grey pajamas that were torn slightly at the bottom from getting under my feet so much. To add to my award-winning appearance, I had twisted my long hair into a rather messy bun on top of my head. It looked like I was wearing a cylindrical dark chocolate-coloured crown.

What made it all worse was the fact that it was Tuesday. Which meant eggs for breakfast. I hated eggs.

My mom danced around the kitchen table, where I was sitting, expertly grabbing and discarding utensils.

While I patiently waited for my disgusting breakfast to be served, I yawned loudly, without bothering to cover my mouth, and rubbed the swollen slits that were my eyes. I looked like a Sasquatch, might as well act like one.

"Mom, did you just hear a whale? I think it was dying." My older brother walked into the kitchen in his night shorts and that stupid Johnny Bravo t-shirt he always wore.

"Oh my god, a chimpanzee just walked into the kitchen!" I put my hands to my mouth in mock horror.

Aaron rolled his eyes and sat opposite me on the table, after grabbing a carton of orange juice from the fridge. Mom just chuckled at our daily verbal war.

He unscrewed the cap and wiggled his eyebrows at me, as he lifted the carton close to his mouth.

My eyes widened in shock. He wouldn't. He wouldn't dare! He would! He did.

"NO! You monster!" He drank the juice straight from the carton. "Mother! He did that on purpose!"

There was no way in hell I was drinking that juice now.

Mom laid a plate in front of me. "Just drink the juice. What's the problem? He's your brother."

"What's the problem? What's the problem? Mother, do you want me to die?!"

She gave me a deadpanned look. "Well, there isn't any more. You'll just have to make do without juice today, then. And quit calling me that, will you?"

She hated it when I called her 'mother'. She felt it was too formal but I did that on purpose just to bug her.

I shot Aaron a death glare but he just chomped away on his cereal, looking amused.

Like I was saying earlier, today was a hideous day. And now there was no orange juice.

I looked down at my plate to be greeted by two half-fried eggs and two slices of bacon with cheese, arranged in the form of a smile. The eggs were smiling at me. They had no right to smile at me. They tasted disgusting. And I had no orange juice to get rid of the horrid taste.

I wanted to kill Aaron. I was about to pounce on him from across the table when Charlie strolled into the kitchen looking completely professional.

"Oh hello, Charlotte! Come have breakfast. I've made blueberry pancakes!" Mom began shuffling about in the kitchen again.