Ground Down

Chapter 2

Tuesdays were horrible. 

Most people hated Mondays, but Mondays were only horrible because they led up to Tuesdays. Because they would have started driving on a Monday. So, after all, Mondays were horrible, too. Tuesdays were just worse. 

Clarke nudged her bowl of cereal. Nudged it again so that it slid an inch over the counter and the spoon ground along its edge, and nudged it again and again and again until the milk spilled over and soaked itself all around the bottom so that it would make a right mess when she would pick it up to throw it all out. She dropped her head onto her arms. Her hair probably ended up in the milk. 

"I did not make you breakfast for you to play with it."

Her mother put her bag down somewhere way too close to her head. Everywhere on the counter qualified as way too close to her head. Clarke snorted against the stone. It made hot-air circles on all its swirly patterns. 

"Because I'm five years old."

"You sure act like it."

The clasp of the bag snapped open, whatever her mother was packing, she sure did it with emphasis. 

"I'll act however I want!" 

Clarke rammed her knee against the counter, the barstool rocked backwards and her head flat onto stone surface with a numb thud. Abby did not verbally comment and she squeezed her eyes shut to make sure she would not see any non-verbal commentary which would be descending on her like a flock of flesh-eating birds.

She was not up for another fight with her, she wished she would just leave. Go do her job, save some people after having made sure they definitely did not matter to anyone she loved, pat herself on the shoulder for that, repeat. Just like she expected to be called a good mother for pouring cereal and milk into a bowl and letting it sit on the countertop for her to find. She did not want cereal. She did not want anything. She wanted it to be Wednesday. Or Thursday. Or Friday. Truth be told, they all sucked. 

The headache spreading from her temples felt almost blissful, even if only for the fact that she well deserved it. If it would spread and eat her up and-

"How did you sleep?" her mother interrupted her marathon in self-pity, and she hated her for that, too. 

"I didn't."

Tossing and turning and dozing off for an hour only to be startled awake by nightmares did not count. 

"It's twice as important you eat your breakfast then," Abby told her in a tone that probably mixed caring with authoritarian, but it sounded all reprimanding to Clarke. "You won't be able to focus on your studies if you don't give fuel to your brain."

"I'm not going in." She peeled her head off the stone, scrunched her nose at the spilled cereal and put her chin back down. "Don't feel like it."

She was going to go back to bed. She would curl up under the covers and slap a pillow against her face until she would not be able to stand the heat of her own breath against it anymore and then she would scream into it and throw it across the room. Maybe she would drag herself into the shower then. Or maybe she would do that the next day. 

"Clarke," Abby ducked her head to catch her daughter's gaze, eyebrows raised. "Clarke?"

"What?" 

A lazy twisting motion brought her way too face-to-face with her mother and she turned back away before her eyes would betray the impassive scowl she had dressed in for the day. 

"It has been over three weeks, Clarke, you cannot keep hiding in your room, sulking."

"I'm not sulking!"