Woof woof woof woof! "My stupid alarm goes off yet again by 6:30 a.m. I keep telling myself to change that awful alarm of dogs barking but I know it'll be hard to get used to a new one. I open my eyes slowly and try to adjust my eyes to the darkness. I reach my hand across my bed to stop the Annoying alarm as I am fully awake now. I then pick up my iPhone 6s and check for any new notifications. Notifications meaning any texts from my group chats or Alerts from my games. Weird I know.
After scrolling and seeing no new notifications, I click and open my reminders app to see what I had in store for the week. I had events for the third week of April which included: April 21st which was today, resumption or practice. And the rest of the week entailed more practice and shifts at my secret part time job that my mom didn't know about. Speaking of my mom, she'll have a screaming fit if she ever found out that I was working instead focusing on school as I had lied about my extra source of income. I had told her I was earning it from tutoring other students which was a huge lie, I mean not a lie to be exact, I did try at first to teach but the students I got were either obnoxious or were busy trying to ask me out. I got my part time job as a favor from my friend Dalia as she also has bills to pay because she got cut off from her rich parents after she dropped out of school, reasons unbeknownst to me. She'll tell me when she's ready, I guess. I have to stop my part time job anyway cause of the state championship and finals that are coming up. But before I had bills to pay obviously as I needed to help my mom with the rent and also her medication. She had worked herself to immense exhaustion from taking different shifts at the hospital. She was a dignified nurse in her field but her income wasn't dignified to say the least.
She always took extra shifts at work just so she could pay my tuition fees or get me new running shoes. I always felt bad for her and I tried numerous times to tell her I could manage but she wouldn't listen. She'll always say she chose to bring me into this world and it was her responsibility to take care of my needs. And I will always say back to her that it takes two to make a baby and that we should contact my sperm donor to help but she'll always decline. I am sure if I had not found out on my own that my father was still alive, she would have kept on lying to me that he was dead. Anyways enough useless thoughts, it's time to get ready for school.
I roll out of bed and plug in my phone to charge as it was at 70%. I like going out with a full battery, like who doesn't? I turn on my bedside table light which lights up the room a little but just enough to allow my eyes to adjust my surroundings and also guide me to the bath room. I wear on my fuzzy pink rabbit slippers which are always kept by my bed and walk towards the bathroom. I flick the switch and walk into the lighted bathroom. My bathroom is pretty basic with my toiletries and my hot comb in the drawer compartment under the sink and my medication drawer over the sink. I stare at myself in the mirror to just see my stormy gray eyes which looked like they needed more sleep because of my dark under eyes. I reach and bend down to turn on the tap and splash my face with the cold water. After splashing water on my face to wake up, I then turn off the tap and walk towards the showers. I turn on the shower and strip down bare as I wait for the hot water to come down. I toss my pjs into the basket and hop into the shower.
I'm fresh out from the shower. I wrap my towel around my slim body and strawberry blond hair: I sit down on my chair facing my small dressing mirror and begin to take down my towel from my hair and start to blow dry it. After I'm done with my hair, I then start my face routine which includes the following steps. First step is I put on the aloes Vera gel, then next I apply my face oil then I apply sunscreen. That's all really, there isn't much steps. After I'm done prepping my face, I just fix my brows, apply black eye liner to my eyes to make it pop out and then I line my lips with brown lip liner. I apply my gloss and then get up and walk towards my closet which is opposite my dressing mirror. I pull out my clothes which were just cargo pants, a crop top with a denim jacket and some worn out Jordans (which I thought were real until someone pointed it last term that they were in fact fake but I didn't care cause it's the most expensive thing I own thanks to my mum taking extra shifts just to buy them for me). I finish dressing up and I grab my track uniform and stuff in my backpack and unplug my phone which has charged very fast to 97%. I could manage that till the end of school if the battery holds its end of the bargain and actually last as it's supposed to. The phone is quite old and so the battery life is practically nonexistent but I'll keep managing as I have no plans to change it in the near future.
"Lilly! are you coming out or what? you're going to be late for school!" I hear my mum screaming from the kitchen. I don't reply and I just turn off the lights and close the door and head towards the kitchen.
My home is quite simple, it's an apartment with other tenants in the building. They weren't my age but they were all nice people who minded their business occasionally.
"Morning mama" I say greeting my mum with a hug. She reciprocates my hug and mutters a greeting in a response. She smells of cinnamon which is my favorite spice. She must have made cinnamon tea this early morning.
I separate from the hug and sit down on my chair to an already dished out breakfast. My mum had made me avocado toast with eggs and cinnamon tea. She knows me like the back of her hand.
"Thanks mama, although I thought I told you to take it easy, I could've made the breakfast myself you know" I tell her as I begin to wolf down on my food.
"Yeah, yeah just keep quiet and eat and meet me outside, I'm dropping you off on your first day of school. I'll be in the car waiting" she says while smiling as she grabs her keys from the kitchen counter and heads out of the kitchen. I know she's going to the car to take her meds; she doesn't like me seeing her take them as she wants to appear strong in my eyes. She doesn't know that no matter what she goes through, she'll always be the strongest person in the world to me.
My mom was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, MS for short, right after she turned 20 which was the case when the symptoms were likely to show up. It was an auto immune disease which attacked the spinal cord hence disrupting the nerves connecting the organs to the brain. The first time the symptoms came, she had trouble eating and had diplopia and it affected her legs but she quickly recovered because it was identified in time but then She had her first relapse while being pregnant with me and she did the entire pregnancy alone without dad. Her parents cut her off completely for being pregnant and forbade any contact with her including her elder sister Leila. She often told me stories about aunt Leila and all were good. My mum was sure that aunt Leila made it big in the world and escaped the clutches of tyranny in her family but nevertheless they remained without contact throughout my life and I wonder whether it was intentional on my mum's part or Leila's.
I take the last sip of my cinnamon tea and take the dishes to the sink and turn on the tap water on them. I shut it off and turn to leave the kitchen after grabbing my backpack and phone. I made sure to lock the door after stepping out and stuffing the keys into my backpack purse. I then hurriedly head out down the stairs to meet my mom already reversing from the small parking lot. I hop in the front seat and buckled up and started chatting with my mom about the last term in high school and my upcoming finals.
My mom drops me off Infront of the school building and shouts words of encouragement while speeding away to her job. I walk into the school compound and go find my way to my locker. I find my locker which is close to the chemist lab and stuff it with my track clothes and drop in already packed books from last light that were going to be used after break.
I hear the bell ring had check my timetable to see I had math calculus for first period, I head towards the class and make sure not to draw attention to myself from the bustling energy of returning students. I locate the class and find my seat near the window at the last row of the class. I bring out my phone and to start playing candy crush while patiently waiting for the teacher to come in. Just as I was just about to lose, the teacher comes in and greets us and then begins asking about how we spent our holiday. After the teacher got sufficient answers, he then proceeds to start teaching.
I hear the bell which signaled the day was over which means I had about 15 minutes to rush to the girls changing room and change into my track uniform and go meet the team on the track. I grab my uniform from my locker and head down straight to change. After I was done changing, I ran out to the track behind the school which wasn't fenced from the outside and was close to the busy streets filled with cars.
I ran and met up with my teammates and chatted about our holidays and our upcoming state championship which they all places their bets on me coming first place. Our coach comes and makes us to do the drill and start running track which felt like hours.
After finishing running track, I was surprised to see I was still in good form even after not practicing for a full three weeks as I was busy doing part time jobs to help around the house. I went towards the girl's shower room and washed off the sweat and grime and ease my aching joints with the escaping hot water down my body. I finish with my shower and change into my school clothes and head out of the school. The compound surprisingly still had some students lounging around and it was past 5 p.m. I wear my earplugs and select my comfort song which was bohemian Rapsody by the band Queen and approached the pedestrian crossing while waiting for it to turn green. It turns green after a minute or two and I hurriedly start walking across the street while not bothering to check my left or right and I deemed not necessary cause the light has turned green for pedestrians to cross and besides it was pretty late and there were few people on the street. I was just about to walk over to the pavement when suddenly I felt light and then immense pain washed over me which made my side to tingle like it was on fire. I briefly become air borne and immediately land on the ground with a loud thud I open my eyes to see blood clouding my vision and it was coming down from my forehead. I tried to move but that was when I realized that my legs were twisted in a very weird way. I try to fight the unconscious which was trying to envelop me but I lost without much of a struggle. The last thing I see was a man rushing to my side with blood on his temple and I perceive a distinct smell that I know all too well from my part time job, the smell of whiskey. He's trying to talk to me but I hear nothing and just then my vision goes black.