𝘉𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘉𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥 || 𝘈.𝘛

01

September, 2001

Brielle Helders

The first thing I hear is my dreaded alarm sounding through my small room.

I struggle to open my eyes, but considering this is the fourth alarm that has gone off this morning, I force myself to sit up. I groan at the ache that jolts through my back due to the awkward position I've been lying in for the majority of the night, but the pain soon subsides when an even bigger pain is taking over my tired body.

That pain is the idea of going to school.

I glance at the alarm that's annoyingly woken me four times, seeing that the time reads 7:33AM.

Soon enough, the sound of the alarm is becoming too much to bare and my arm lazily swings out to slam against the top of it, turning the sound off with just one slam.

I despise school. There's quite honestly nothing worse than school, especially a Monday, and double especially the first day of the school year. I hate having to wake up, I hate having to get dressed into a painfully ugly uniform, I hate having to look presentable every day. I hate everything about it.

I don't make my bed when I leave it because my focus is stolen by the reflection that stares at me; mascara that I fell asleep in last night smudged beneath my swollen eyes and matted hair sticking to the back of my head.

Lovely.

I sigh at the sight hopelessly before I blindly step through my room. My floor is full of clothes, hair clips and everything else that I've thrown onto it when I couldn't be bothered putting them away, so I try my absolutely best not to stand on anything. Thankfully, I get to my wall to switch the light on.

Another thing I hate about school, having to wake up when it's dark in winter.

I grimace at the cluttered desk that soon reveals itself beneath the light that I've just flicked on. It's not fair really, I have the smallest room of the house so it's hard for me not to have a cluttered bedroom.

Matt got the biggest room, of course.

I ruffle through the clutter to get my obvious necessities; mascara, moisturizer and lip gloss, before making my way to the bathroom. Quite honestly, I'm fucking freezing. It's completely beyond me as to why my Mum never puts the heating on in a morning but I sigh in comfort when I drag my newly-ironed uniform from the banister of the stairs on the way to the bathroom. They're still warm from being ironed.

''You look like you've been dragged through a bush.'' Matt says just as I'm about to open the bathroom door. His hair is gelled to the brim and his tie isn't even tied around his neck, it's just hanging.

He looks like a scruff.

''Gee, thanks.'' I deadpan and he shrugs before running down the stairs with his shirt untucked from his pants.

Can't wait to see him get a detention for that one.

Thankfully, it doesn't take long to get ready, clean up the old mascara and put a new layer on, and brush my teeth. I quickly brush my hair before spraying it with a frizz spray.

''Shit.'' I whisper under my breath when I wander back into my room to see that the time is now approaching eight. I grab my bag that's hung over my door and my shoes from next to my door before slinging the backpack lazily over just one of my shoulders. It's probably missing half of the stuff I should have but I'll deal with it later.

''Alreyt, Helders?'' The familiar voice is greeting me almost too nicely at the door of my kitchen and I'm close to jumping out of my skin at the abruptness of it.