Unintentionally Falling

chapter fourteen

Iris

Nothing beats having a nice shower to wake you up in the morning.

But I'm still a bit riled up from five days ago, I'm worried about him. About Aaron. That bitch. I wish I could actually get her fired or something. Yeah sure, I protected him physically. But how can I protect him mentally if the thing I'm trying to protect him from is not tangible? How could I protect him from his memories of that night?

My mood was dampened for the night and not even thinking about how Aaron and I would hang out again could fix it.

It's been about five days since we hung out at the bookstore. We've been texting a lot, but it's been so busy lately for the two of us.

And the part that's making it worse-- at least right now--is the tiny fact that I'm in a shared bathroom. A communal bathroom at our university. And let me tell you the person beside me is singing country music pretty goddamn loud. Now country music ain't exactly my thing. Now, I can't judge you if you like it, everyone likes different things.

But the person beside me is going all out, even singing it in a country accent. Look, I know full well after living in Southern California my whole life that no one just comes out of here sounding like they were born and raised in Texas.

And now I get it, I like singing too, but it's too early in the morning to be doing this. And it isn't god level like Aurora singing where I feel like I'm floating.

I didn't get a moment to myself without Blake Shelton back in the showers singing country songs. I left first too. I decided to let my hair air dry 'cause I got time today.

Most days are rush, rush, rush. I just want to stay home cuddle up in bed with my blankets and play some Mario Kart, while chomping on some of Carmen Aguerro's leftover matambre arrollado.

That's the dream.

I throw my pyjamas into my laundry bin, those definitely need to be washed soon. My train of thought gets momentarily blocked because of my phone, someone's calling. It's pretty early too, it's definitely not my father-- I know that for a fact.

He works way too late at his firm and passes out when he gets home, going straight to bed. Then repeats. That's been his schedule for as long as I could remember.

Leaving him to always take care of me.

"It's so early, shouldn't you be asleep or something? Or better yet, focused on whatever the hell you do." I tease through the speaker, it's been quite a while since I've talked to him. Not because I didn't want to, it's just that he's always busy with work. He definitely got the 'busy bee worker' trait from our dad.

"Hey, what I do is very demanding ." He remarked with a laugh, "Also, that's no way to greet your charming, beautiful, and very handsome brother. Who by the way you haven't talked to in a while." He sighs loudly at the last part. I can almost picture him running a hand over his face. He's annoyed at us haven't seen each other in awhile, we're pretty close after all.

"Yeah, but you're always busy. Doing shows and shit." I grumble in response.

My brother is one of my favourite people in the whole wide world, always had my back since we were kids. It's weird, this is really one of the first times we've been truly apart.

Even after he graduated high school he came back often. Whether it was checking up on me, giving me aspirin when I was hungover, grabbing me takeout when I was studying for SATS. He did it all.

"Yeah well, we need to keep doing shows, our single going to be released by UnChecked Records. We can't afford to slow down now." He elaborates.

By 'our single' he means his band's single. They got a record deal about seven months back. My brother was legit crying when he found out over the phone from the band's drummer Griff, who's also his best friend.