Tuning The Broken Strings

Chapter 5 | One Day

I stood on in front of my mirror, looking at myself while wearing my guitar around my neck. You can do this, you've done it a billion times before I thought to myself, looking in the mirror. You just gotta remember how to sing the song, Jaxyn will save you if you forget a chord. I keep thinking. I slap myself in the face, "Why are you doing this?" I ask to myself out loud. "I dunno, but all I know is that it will help me... I think..." I say. I hear my door open.
"What are you doing?" My brother barged in and asked, "Who are you talking to? 'Cause there is no one else in here to talk to..."
"I can talk to you." I say, turning to see him.
"Alright, well, Imma go now," He replied, starting to walk out. "Oh, and also, the Talent Show is tomorrow btw."
"Yes, I know!" I shout, slamming the door behind him. I continue to talk to myself, driving my brother insane. I start to practice while giving myself stupid feedback. Jack and April call a couple times, but I decide to ignore them. I get texts like crazy from the band, and just throw my phone aside onto my bean bag chair. After a while I just lay there, and just talk to myself even more. I stay up until 12:00, practicing, talking to myself, laying there. I finally turn off my lights and try to fall asleep, but I can't. I look at the clock every 2 minutes, seeing how long has passed. I try to relax, and fall asleep, but I still can't. I'm finally forced to get up and walk downstairs. I grab a midnight snack and walk by my brother's room to pick up my little puppy. I jump back onto my bed, snuggling with the puppy. I close my eyes and doze off.
Beep Beep Beep My alarm starts screaming at me. I find myself with my head off of the bed, and my poor puppy squished between my arm and the head board. I get up, and open the blinds, turn on the lights, and get dressed. I put on my Blink-182 shirt and my favorite pair of shorts. I throw my clothes from yesterday on the floor and head downstairs. I walk past my sister's shrine and look at it for a while, I see her picture, smiling at me with a big thumbs-up. I felt a tear run down my eye, as it does every morning when I walk past it, and wipe it away. I grab a granola bar and walk back up to my room, shredding a tear once more as I walk past my sister again. I go back into my room, and start changing the strings of my guitar. I throw all of the old strings into a bag, and go into Charlie's room.
I poke him a couple of times, and show him the bag. He immediately gets up, and throws on his clothes. We walk downstairs and see my mom cooking in the kitchen. "What are you doing?" I ask her. She jumped a foot off of the ground, and turns around to see us near the entryway to the kitchen.
"Making breakfast for you guys, what did you think?" She replies.
"You never make breakfast for us..." I respond, looking at her in a weird way.
"Yeah..." Charlie adds.
"Well, I'm heading off to school with Charlie." I say, grabbing some eggs for the road.
"Alrighty, but it's pretty early to go to school, well, see you guys later!" She responds, waving.
"See ya!" Charlie shouts as he gets his shoes on while trying to wave back. I join him on the bench and slip on my black, Green Day converse. We both grab our backpacks and head out the door. I take my keys and lock it. We grab our bikes from the driveway and head off to the graveyard.
We bike about 1/2 of a mile, and stop in front of the gate. I put my kickstand down and let go of my bike. Charlie starts to run ahead to a tree, right next to my sister. I take the bag of strings and place them into the basket. He takes a couple of roses he grabbed from the store a couple of days ago and places them right next to it. I shed a couple of tears and race back to my bike. I put my kickstand back up and ride off to school. Charlie rides the other way, going to his school.