Bad Connection✔️

What A Worrisome Thing To Wake Up To

The feeling of not being able to breathe is what wakes me up. It's like a huge, heavy weight is across every inch of my body, suffocating me.

I try to roll over but to no avail. There's actually something heavy on me.

Something suddenly shifts, wiggling a little bit as it adjusts itself on my back. What the fuck?

Lifting my head to the side to glance over my shoulder, I see someone's arm. Then it suddenly hits me in my stupid brain, I can very clearly see their arm. My head jerks to the window, which is completely open as sunlight shines in, the morning breeze fanning over my face.

I check the clock to see it's 8 AM. Monday. I'm late for school.

"Emily, I swear to God, if you keep moving I'm gonna throw you out the window," a familiar, kind of groggy voice says, making me frown.

"Lucas?"

"Hm?"

I huff, trying to wiggle out from underneath him, but ending up being disappointed as I make absolutely no leeway.

"Dear lord! What do you eat?" I ask, genuinely contemplating if he swallowed rocks before deciding to make me miserable this morning.

He grunts in response before rolling off me onto the other side of my bed and making himself comfortable under the blankets with his back to me.

I feel a little relief after I can finally sit up, able to breathe again. I glance around the room, checking to see if any other unannounced guests made their way into my room this hellish morning.

"Why are you here?" I ask, pulling myself out of bed to get dressed. I have so much to do today.

"Skipping school, obviously. I turned off your alarm too, you're gonna skip with me. I need another Emmi day," he says, a little muffled from the pillow. I roll my eyes.

I move to my closet to find something to wear, eventually picking a pair of jean shorts and a pink tank-top after checking the weather forecast. I change inside the closet, adding a pair of white sandals to finish off the whole thing.

"Do I need to put on makeup for your plans today?" I ask Lucas while I brush through my rats' nest of a head.

He rolls over to answer me before his eyes go wide. "How does your hair even get that bad? Doesn't that hurt? How are you- STOP BRUSHING IT SO AGGRESSIVELY YOU'RE GONNA GO BALD!"

He quickly jumps out of bed and snatched the brush from my hands, sending me an irritated look before gently brushing my hair from the bottom and working his way up. I look at his outfit in the mirror. White t-shirt, khaki shorts, brown flip-flops.

My hair has always tangled pretty easily since it's kind of thick. When Lucas and I were little, his mom used to brush my hair for me in the morning after Lucas and I had slumber parties. Lucas would always sit and watch so intently, his eyes always squinting when his mom would tackle a tangle he thought would hurt. I guess he picked up on how to do it.

"I'm not five, I can brush my own hair."

He scoffed. "Yeah, and you'd probably go bald after how you do it." I just rolled my eyes in return, crossing my arms while I waited for him to finish.

Soon enough, he was stepping back to admire how well he'd done. I brushed my fingers through my hair to make sure there were no leftover tangles. Wow, it feels really smooth.

I shoot him a small and flip my hair over, throwing it into a messy bun. His whole face dropped.

"My artwork," he whispers, staring at the bun like it's a kicked puppy.