17 years later — The Present
Essendale, Western Brisbane Suburbs, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Monday 22nd of March
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep!
I was suddenly awoken by the sound of the alarm clock I dreaded the most.
Beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep!
This was beginning to irritate me, and so out of frustration I began to look and search for the alarm clock which I'd placed on the head of my bed as I didn't have a bedside table. *tap* *tap*, I began tapping my hand on the head of my bed searching for my travel clock in hopes to silence it. The thing I disliked about my clock was that it was a travel clock— though quite easy to carry around and quite loud, it was a hassle to try and locate it in the morning while in my half awake state.
Beep beep beep beep, beep beep beep beep, beep beep beep beep, beep beep beep beep, beep beep Beep beep, beep beep beep beep, beep beep beep beep, beep beep beep beep, beep beep beep beep!
The clock's third sequence went off as the sound of the ringing increased in higher frequencies. "Fuck!" Finding and grabbing onto the clock I threw it across the room in an attempt to get back at it.
Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep!
"Oh fuck off now!" I had thrown it but the clock was still going. Nonetheless, I was annoyed, and quite impressed at how I threw the clock. In retrospect— this type of clock would snooze itself if you tap on it and would stop the alarm completely if you flip it on its other side; and to switch it back on you'd have to flip it to the other side again.
Getting up and out of bed, I picked up the clock and flipped it to silence it. "For fuck's sake..." I was quite grumpy at the moment. I began to stare at the digital time which was being displayed on the clock: 05:18
Damn... thinking back to the night before I believe I had gone to bed at midnight, only getting about 5 hours of sleep— holy fuck; this habit was getting quite out of hand.
Stretching my body, I couldn't help but feel a little numb due to the lack of rest I was getting— Though I think of this most of the time, I usually brush it off while thinking of getting two shots of coffee before school. Now that I think of it is it normal for a 17-year-old to intake the amount of coffee I usually have weekly? I don't really care. Coffee tastes quite good... well with 3 spoonfuls of sugar that is. I nodded in agreement with myself as I took of my close to get in the shower.
I stared at myself in the mirror and the sight of my messy bed hair never failed to impress me. It wasn't that my hair was messy but... it never fails to look all frizzed up...
Had my hair been sucked dry during my sleep? I look like a dehydrated John Leguizamo....
Getting out of the shower I stared and reevaluated myself in the mirror. I nodded in satisfaction; nice, neat and luscious shoulder-length black hair which looked quite good on a young man as myself, and my not too dead grey eyes. "Holy〜! Damn, how did I go from looking like a dried up John Leguizamo to a younger (and possibly more attractive) version of Jason Momoa?" I smirked in the mirror. Showers can bring you quite far! I nodded once more.
Pulling my towel over my head, I began to dry my hair as I left the bathroom buck naked while still being wet. It was about 05:30 right now so—
Before I could get to open the door to my bedroom again, the neighbouring door which was right next to mine and facing the bathroom like mine, opened up.
As the door slowly opened itself, the petite figure of a blonde and grey eyed girl eyed my naked body with a tired gaze.
"..."
She wasn't speaking... was she still tired? Did she die standing on the spot?
I quickly cleared my throat and dropped my towel before beginning to speak as I thought of something. "Hello there."
"Genera Ke— oh... uh hi." Damn that was quite the boring reaction. She was four letters away from greatness! "Bro, you're gonna get a cold if you start walking around the house naked like that."
"Ho ho〜! My inexperienced younger sister! You may be unaware of this fact— but I actually quite like the cold! In fact, I triumph and overcome most challenges within a cool environment!" I gave out an arrogant smile as I stared at her. Damn! Why do I act like this in front of my sister? Damn, now that I think of it, I don't act to differently to that when I'm with close friends... I guess that must be a good thing, then.
"Hey, Lynne."
"What's wrong? Are you catching a cold? It's the middle of Autumn, so the temperature should start dropping by April."
"No, no it's not that but... don't you have swimming practice?"
"No, we had our swimming carnival last week— this week's the last week of school." Lynne's voice seemed a tad bit colder or... disappointed... than before. Before I could do anything, Lynne had passed me and went in the bathroom as she closed the door behind her.
Ah... I had missed her swimming carnival...
Just as I began to think we might have gotten closer than last time, it felt like a chunk of distance had been added once again between us. I sighed.
Lynne was in fact my sister— well my half-sister anyways, but that bit was unimportant as we were still, without a doubt— related by blood.
Lynne and I share the same mother and only have each other as siblings. No— that's not true. At least it's not true for her, that is. Lynne is my only blood related sibling, however, she has an older brother which she cares a lot for, as she and her brother share the same father; so in the back of my head I'd always tell myself that I wasn't the favourite or that I'm not that important as to keep my ego and self-importance to a small size. I usually try undervaluing myself as to not have expectations of what others think of me.
Lynne's older brother— Justin, could sort of be counted as my stepbro— I mean step-sibling, as he shares no blood relations with me. He is older than me as well as he was 19. He was what you'd imagine as the model older brother character; He was tall athletic, was an ace of the basketball team back when he was in high school, has good grades even now in University, was mature and made money through part-time work.
Furthermore, he and Lynne shared the blonde hair of their father, while Lynne and I shared my mother's grey eyes.
To be honest... I can't tell if there was any favouritism between us kids as I can tell that my mother loves all of her kids equally— She even helps Justin with things like rent and taxes, while helping him with his and his girlfriend's baby as if it were really her own grandchild.
But as it is in most families, I as the middle child, usually fades in the background— but that's just the way I like it.
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Today was a Monday— so putting my schedule into consideration, I had volleyball training at 07:30, with our Gala Day being just one week away.
(Author's Note: Think of Gala Day like a preliminary tournament between different high schools like; state schools, private schools, and Christian schools to get a chance to compete on the national level.)
"Sigh... why does everything seem so bland?" I sighed. I checked my phone for the time, and it was 06:30.
By this time I'd already had my breakfast, ironed my own and Lynne's uniforms, made lunch and— I paused...
It seems like I'll have to buy lunch at the tuck shop. "Sigh..." We're already off to a bad start with how many times I've been sighing in the span of just waking up.
I was currently in my sports uniform— a black and gold sports polo with black sports shorts with the school's emblem embroidered on each. My school's theme colors being black, white and gold. I was also wearing black lightweight compression sleeves on each arm. I guess I looked kinda cool.
Getting on my bike— I rode for about 20 minutes before arriving at school— Essendale State High School.
Mmh... is it considered favouritism to send one of you kids to a private school while one goes to a state school? Maybe. But the fact still stands that I'm quite happy with how things stand right now.
Though I don't currently have my 'spice' in life, I quite enjoy this status quo. I finally locked my bike onto the school's public bike rack while taking off my helmet.
It was 6:50 and as I didn't get much sleep, I decided to get another coffee from the school's café which only opened between 06:50 and 07:50 for students who had morning clubs, training or practices— I'd even seen a kid who'd brought a sports bag with a tennis racquet peeking out of the bag's zip lock from the tennis excellence program.
Receiving my coffee— I walked all the way from the front gate to the Sports Centre.
The Sports Centre was a large gymnasium used for multiple sports; including volleyball, basketball, netball, badminton, etc.
As multiple clubs would be booking the grounds of the gymnasium— the coach only had room to book our practices on Mondays which was quite depressing for me as I dreaded waking up on Mondays. Though I say we start at 07:30, we would usually get here at 07:00 as to give us half an hour to set up nets, stretch and warm up.
Finally, as I passed through the science block building— the Sports Centre could be seen less than 20 meters away from me.
Inside the Sports Centre I could see the Year 10 to 12 students setting up the nets— it was surprisingly quite coordinated. There were six groups of two or more carrying a pole each for the nets, three groups of two people to place the net itself, three people with a crank handle to wind up the nets and three people with plungers as to plunge into the ground to remove the lids from the holes stopping the poles from being erected.
You needed at least 6 people to fill up a volleyball team; our team had 9— with 6 of those 9— including me, having gone to last year's Gala Day when we had won by a landslide. Though last year we had only had the bare minimum amount of people to play and would be prone to running out of stamina faster, we had still had an outstanding victory amongst all the schools which had participated in the event.
"Bro, why're you always so late?"
"Yeah, dude, you have to let Mr Capello know that you're here."
"You always arrive at school all sweaty and stuff. You good bro?"
"Nah bro, I just fell back asleep, it's nothin ya know—" I quickly responded as we all had smiles on our faces. Quickly dropping my school bag on the floor next to the other bags, I quickly made my way to the other boys. Hehe. I wonder if any of the girls were looking? Like there's a group of 9 not too far from 6ft tall and above average looking guys here playing sports, aren't you even a bit curious?
I had a smile on my face as I slightly inflated my ego... I truly enjoyed thinking and acting like this with my friends.
"C'mon boys!!! Last practice before Gala! Do 2 laps around the gym to get warmed up before following Mr Rudolf's instructions on training!" Mr Capello yelled from across the Gym as he began walking in our direction with clipboard and pen in hand.
"Yessir〜!"
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"Jack..." This voice seemed quite blurry... why did it sound so far away?
"Oi, Jack...!" No, no. Something seemed off. Why was I so sore? Why do I feel so queasy?
"Wake up, Jack!" Shit! I feel like vomiting!