She stared at the walls in the darkness, straining her eyes and body to adjust to the darkness and all in all: the jolt of waking up so early in the morning. After floating in and out of consciousness for about twenty minutes, she dragged herself from the sitting room and into the master bathroom. Splashing cold water on her face, she could barely stand without the counter’s support. She stared at her worn out reflection in the mirror, and watched her eyes dilate with the flickering lights. She tried manipulating them to augment as much as possible while she could still see them, but after getting a headache, she decided to quit it.

Sighing, she looked deep at herself and fought the sudden urge to cry. A pinch snapped her out of it, and she regained her element. Woah. Where did that come from? She glanced down and saw her own two fingers poised over her left wrist. Since when… And then she remembered how she had pinched herself when she was cut from co-ed tryouts. I’ll have to stop that, she noted.

She went through the motions of brushing her teeth, putting in her contacts, and applying a ton of makeup to cover up the fact that four hours of sleep was a blessing. She walked out and passed her grandmother typing away on her government issued laptop. “Hey pretty girl,” she looked up from the screen at her granddaughter. “Come over here and give me a kiss.”
She lumped over to the main part of the bedroom and exchanged kisses with her grandmother. She hated this. She loved her grandmother, but she hated this. It was a waste of time, in her mind, to go through the same routine every day. Waking up every morning and seeing her slave away hurt her, too. Why do we put ourselves through this? She thought to herself. “I love you, Granny.”

“Love you too, princess.”

She saw her dog raise her head from the mass of sheets that insulated her little sister as she slept. She passed through the doorway across from the bathroom and into the closet that she shared with her. She dressed herself after staring down the same Bible posters that covered the closet walls. She finally felt an urgency to move when she saw the clock read 4:53. She grabbed her backpack and shoes and headed back to her grandmother to kiss her goodbye.

“Do you want me to drive you to school?”
She stopped to think for a minute. “No thanks, Granny. I think Daddy is supposed to anyways.” She kissed the old lady’s cheek as she scrambled down the steps.
“Bye, Bella,” she heard her grandmother call in the midst of the little clickity-clack-clacks of the keyboard.

She hit the bottom steps and went into the kitchen to put on her shoes as her dad came up from the basement to do the same. “’Morning, Bella.”

“’Morning.” She gathered all of her things and waited for him to finish. She looked at the clock over the gas stove and felt her heart skip a beat when it blinked to give off a reading of 5:01. They had to go through three counties just to hit her school district and traffic could change in the blink of an eye. Being late to school was something that she could not stand. Not everyone needed to stare at her when she sprinted up three flights of steps just to hear the bell ring right before she got there, or God forbid, get there so late that she was counted as absent. But dying all the while, she kept her composure and patiently waited while he laced his boots and then tied them agonizingly slow. It took him three minutes to finish.

She felt like a druggie on a cigarette break when he finally grabbed his keys and they left the house. He started the old 1999 Ford truck just to remember that he left some papers that he needed for work down in the basement. She was grateful that the heat was working today when he went back in. She noticed that there was a bottle blocking the AC controls; a bottle of hard lemonade from last night, evidently, seeing as it wasn’t there when he picked her up from school. He has been drinking a lot lately. Her heart pounded again as she realized the impending dangers of being in a vehicle with him, but she didn’t want to be late to school. It made her hate herself to sit through the ride there, but she made it to school without having a heart attack. What made it worse was that she was late to first period, never the less.

The day was brutal, she lied to her friends so often about why she was late that, more often than not, she forgot which she used for each day. During lunch, she avoided people at all costs. She went to a computer lab instead of the cafeteria and logged into a popular forum. She found an article about the attractive traits found in eyes. “After being shown multiple photos of different women, we have found that men like eyes that are dilated.”
She laughed to herself when she read that. She gathered her things and went into the bathroom and tried to dilate them again. On the verge of another headache, she was happy that the bell mandated her arrival to her next class.

As usual, by the end of the day, Bella was wishing that she had more time to sleep. She slumped to the bus where her mom was supposed to pick her up. She waited for half an hour in the February winds until their car pulled up with her two younger brother and sister inside. She piled in and answered the age old question of how school was. As soon as she wriggled out of that one, they were headed into rush hour traffic for another two-hour trek up the beltway. She ironed out as much homework as possible before returning to her grandmother’s house.

Bella ran upstairs as soon as the car was parked in the driveway to get first dibs on her grandmother’s laptop and finish the homework that required internet access. She plopped on her mattress on the floor and started to type when she heard her parents arguing. She scooched over to the air vent that allowed her to hear everything and anything going on in the kitchen.

“But we’ve put so much into this!” She heard her mother say.
“No,” said her father. “We said that we wanted a stable house for the kids—” Pinch. “This isn’t it. That house isn’t it. We’ve spent over six months here and the kids’ grades are slipping but—” She felt tears swelling. Pinch.
“But we’ll lose all the money we invested in it.” Pinch.
“Kristina, that house is a hell hole. We deserve better, it will just take more time.”
“Fine.” Papers rustled below. “I’ll call the real estate agent. We can drop the contract.” Pinch.

Pinch. Her head hit the pillow as the impact of the situation hit her. An extended stay in this temporary home? I can’t handle that, she thought. More sleepless nights with endless clickity-clack-clacks? She could practically feel the impending headache when her eyes dilated as sun set. Tears docked on her waterline. Pinch. The view blurred. Pinch. Pinch. Why, God? Pinch. Pinch. This time, nothing could stop the tears from running down her face. No, no, no, no, no! Stop it! She demanded of herself. Stop it! And when she fell asleep, she knew that she would again be behind in school the next day.