You Can't Break Me

Chapter 1

Sunlight streamed through the window, striping my face. My dark green eyes fluttered open, and I saw a blurry face smiling at me. So naturally, I screamed, shot out of bed, grabbed the lacrosse stick leaning against my wall, and thrusted it at the person who was now crouched on my bed facing me.

"Hi," the person said, blinking big blueish-hazel eyes. "I just wanted to say hi. Did you know that you snore when you sleep? It's really loud."

Now, I'm not a morning person, but I had managed to process that the blur was to my five year old stepsister, Carmen Grace.

"Grrrrrr," I said, rubbing my eyes. "It's only, like, Wednesday...Wait, its Wednesday! School starts today!"

I scrambled to my closet. Carmen Grace crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, bounced off my coral bedspread, and followed me to my closet.

She asked, "Can I pick out what you're gonna wear?" She started twirling a light blond curl around her finger.

"No," I said as I reached for a blue and lavender patterned sweater and threw it on my swivel chair.

"Now can you please get out?"

She dropped her head, decided against being sad, then pranced out the door. I locked it, groped in my drawers for pants, changed, then unlocked and opened the door.

I almost ran into my nine year old stepbrother, Jason, who was playing Wizard's Lair on his tablet for the hundredth time. I'm surprised he could see the screen. His sandy hair fell over most of his sea-blue eyes.

"Hey there, Mr. Electro," I said, waving my hand between his face and the tablet's screen. "You thinking about getting off anytime between now and when we're all dead?"

He glanced up and mumbled something along the lines of "Suey, Linty."

I think he was trying to say "Sorry, Lindsey," but with Jason, you never know. He probably actually called me Linty.

I pushed passed him and into the long, chaotic hallway of our one story house.

"Hi there, Lindsey," my stepdad Chris said. "Are you pumped for your first day of seventh grade at Summer Valley?"

"Um..." I replied, "I'm kinda scared, but, you know, I'm okay."

I grabbed my lunch from the fridge, then put it in my brand new minty swirl-print backpack, then sat down at the kitchen table.

"So what's for breakfast?" I asked.

I bet you've read about families in books where the mom cooks perfect French toast with fresh maple syrup every day. Yeah, not a reality in my house. Here, Chris cooks everything, and most of it is just average in taste.

He replied, "The menu today is microwave pancakes or SweetieOs with milk. Which one would you like? Remember, you don't have much time."

Chris reached over and ruffled my dirty-blond hair. Anyone who didn't know we were a step family would say we look like a blood family, mostly because we all have blondish hair except my mother, who has light brown.

We also know each other pretty well, despite the fact Mom and Chris have only been together for about two years.

"Probably SweetieOs," I said. I like the tiny marshmallows hidden between the flakes of cereal. That's probably actually the only reason I eat them.

After I had scooped up the last of the SweetOs and pulled my elbow-length hair into a loose ponytail, I picked up my bag and headed for the door.