The First Drop Of Rain

Chapter Seventeen

I woke up the next morning to the smell of biscuits and gravy, and the sound of Bon Jovi drifting up the stairs. Not only was my dad home, he was in a good mood. He had come late the previous night, I was already in bed, and I heard him open my door to check I was there before shutting it and ushering Maddie into his room. I rolled myself out of bed and threw a cardigan that I had kicked under my bed the night before over my shoulders, as the chill of November had already gripped us early this Halloween morning. After finally shoving my slippers onto my feet I wandered my way downstairs. My father stood whisking the milk gravy and singing 'It's My Life' in a hushed tone. When he finally finished the song I erupted into a ton of cheers and clapping. "Encore!" Dad spun around, successfully flinging gravy across the kitchen off the whisk.

"Hey squirt didn't realize you were up!" The next song began to play from the bluetooth speaker, and he reached over to pause it before returning to the gravy and removing it from the heat. "Want some breakfast? I know you got a long night ahead of you." His Halloween costume must be himself from before the accident because I hadn't seen him willingly make breakfast like this in almost four years.

"Yeah absolutely, as long as you didn't burn the sausage."

"Oh well that's just mean, you know I'm better than that." He waved the whisk at me, flinging another drop of gravy, this time it landed in a plop on the floor and Maddie dashed to vacuum it up. As he sat the plates on the table I jumped up and started the coffee, a relatively quick thing to do in our house due to the coffee maker being the most regularly maintenanced thing in the kitchen. The handle to the microwave may be cracked and broken but the coffee maker glistened like it was brand new and ran just the same.

Once the piping hot liquid was done brewing I poured two cups and grabbed the table top sugar and creamer containers and sat it all down in the center. By this point my father had also fed Maddie, who munched happily on her dry kibble that was mixed with leftover sausage and the tiniest biscuit from the batch that had been pulled from the oven.

We sat in silence for a moment while we mixed our coffees to our preferred levels of perfection and then began chowing down on the plates in front of us. My stomach shuddered in hesitation as the food began to slide down my throat, and my fathers eyes bounced up to mine. He had heard the audible groan and looked at me with sympathy. "Is your stomach acting up again? What did you have to eat last night?"

"I had stir fry, and popcorn."

"Is it, maybe, the popcorn you had?" He wondered aloud.

"I don't know but I hope it stops before the dance." I grinned as I forced myself to eat more food.

"Are you sure you want to go when you're feeling like this? The kids at school already think something else when you are having a flare up."

"I will not sacrifice my happiness and ability to make memories in highschool for their comfort." I stated simply as I shoved more food into my mouth and ignored my audible groans my stomach gave.

"Okay honey but you will have plenty of opportunities to make memories in highschool, you're in your first semester of freshman year, don't sacrifice your comfort for the sake of tradition and the fear of missing out."

"I've already promised Gi that I was going to help set up, I'll let her know it's a flare up day and she will help me and help keep an eye on it all." I countered, knowing full well that he had lost this battle. Gi was the only one more well versed than myself and my father in handling my medical issues. During flare ups I couldn't eat as fast if at all, we didn't have an official diagnosis yet but the term 'autoimmune disorder' had been tossed around during my tests. I hadn't had a flare up since before my surfing accident, but the flare ups always made me suffer a little more than the average of your typical angsty teen.