Where Were You

Collecting Attitude

Lucas' PoV

"Matthew!" I threw my bag onto the staircase and chased him around as he held a tight grip on one of my hockey collectable cards. "I told you not to touch these!"

"Ukus!" He sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor and started to pout. I noticed his eyes start to water and before I could even say anything, he let out a loud wail, flinging the card across the room.

"Shh!" I panicked and knelt down beside him. "I'm sorry! Please don't cry?" I looked around the living room when I heard footsteps coming closer. "Please?"

"What happened?" Momma set down the laundry basket on the breakfast bar and frowned.

"Lo!" Matthew immediately stopped crying and grinned over at Momma. "Lo!" He said again, his arms opening up while he ran over to her.

Momma gave me a confused look. "Why was he crying Lucas?"

"I yelled at him." I got up off the floor after picking up my card and held it up. "He was about to make this his snack."

She ran her hands through his curls and looked at him. "You like to get your little fingers on everything and anything, don't you?"

"He shouldn't have had it in the first place." I said with a tone that didn't exactly make her smile at me.

"Well we have the gate up so he can't climb the stairs, which means they were left out." She set Matthew down and we both watched him run into the living room, making a dive for his toy trucks.

"So this is my fault?" I raised an eyebrow and she sighed.

"Lucas, I don't know why you insist I think everything is your fault lately." Momma began to fold the laundry right there and she eyed me up when I didn't make a move to leave. "Did I upset you in any way?"

I was feeling a lot different the quicker summer approached. I found myself wanting to be alone and pulling away from my old friends – except for Hadley and Jaiden. I wanted to be around her all the time. We had established a little relationship and although it was purely innocent, it felt cool keeping it all a secret. Dylan knew but she was trust worthy.

Other than those three, everyone else seemed to be getting on my nerves. Girls wanted to wear shorter skirts or bikinis to swim class. Mom would kill me if she found me in a short skirt, not that I'd wear one. Everyone was starting to try and fit in somewhere before their twelfth or thirteenth birthday.

I didn't want anything to change.

My home environment even changed. Everything was so different from how it used to be. My parents used up all of their sick days to keep Matthew as comfortable as they could in our home. With them back to work, they were running small interviews for someone to care for him while everyone was at work or school. Day care seemed a little overwhelming for them, I guess.

The main thing that frustrated me was the back and forth of both houses. I wasn't sure when the final decision would be made about who would live where but I didn't feel like leaving my house. The house I practically grew up in; the house that held so many memories in my childhood life.

No one seemed to be listening to what I wanted though. Mom always said we'd talk about it later and Momma said the same thing.

Dylan wasn't as frustrated as I was. She liked the back and forth.

"Can you please just make sure he stops touching my stuff?" I grumbled and started to make my way towards the stairs but she held me back. "I have homework to do."