Cassandra

I woke up to the sound of birds chirping out of my window.

Slowly sitting upright and rubbing my eyes, I yawned.

The only thing illuminating my room was the small slivers of light coming through my window created by the rising sun and a pinkish, purplish hue along with it.

I picked up my phone to check the time and it said 7:10, give or take a couple of minutes.

'Hmm, I woke up a little bit later today' I thought to myself alone in my room.

'Doesn't matter. As long as it won't make me late for school.' And I got up to get ready for the day.

The first thing I did was trudge over to my closet; still groggy from waking up and picked out a nice, cinnamon coloured long sleeve top, black tights and my usual uggs, this time in light brown.

Happy with what I had chosen to wear, I went to the bathroom to put it all on.

After I had my clothes on, I managed to tame my crazy, knotted, boring brown hair with a brush so it would fall straight on my face and cascade around my shoulders like usual.

Once I was done with that I put a little bit of lip balm on (I didn't care much for wearing real makeup to school anyway) and grabbed my glasses from the bathroom counter for the finishing touch.

Carefully placing them on my face, I blinked, letting the world become clear once again.

After that, I left my room to wake my sister up.

I opened her door a tiny bit to see her laying in her bed.

She looked so calm and at peace when she was asleep; I almost wished I could let her stay that way forever.

But alas, I couldn't so I crept up and knelt beside her.

"Eva, come on, wake up," I said slowly and softly, shaking her shoulders a little.

She stirred and turned on her side to face me, mumbling "hmm?" In response.

"We have to go to school today Evie," I continued as I stroked her face.

"Do we have to?" She rubbed her eyes.

I chuckled softly to her. "Sadly, yes we do but luckily, it's almost the weekend so you can sleep in then."

She sat up, saying, "ok." And started to get up out of bed.

I stood up and headed out of her room but stopped halfway, turned back to Eva and yelled to her "Breakfast will be ready in 5!"

A muffled "Mmkay" came back from her and I headed for the stairs.

Like usual, I ran down them; it was a bad habit, I admit.

But a pale pink sticky note was stuck to the kitchen table when I got there.

'Hm. That wasn't there yesterday...' I thought to myself as I got closer to it.

When I finally arrived at the table I yanked the note off of the table and read what was on it out loud.

It said: Had to go to work early today :( but I made lunches for you two to take to school, they're sandwiches! Enjoy, Mom ♥️

I smiled at the note but a bit sad that mom wasn't here this morning.

'Being a nurse was hard and sometimes you just have to make sacrifices' I conclude and folded up the note.

I took out a bowl and filled it up with milk to make Eva's breakfast and poured in her favourite cereal; Captain Crunch.

And as for myself, whole grain would have to do.

I was putting everything away when I saw Eva walk in.

She was wearing a fluorescent pink top with the words princess engraved in silver sparkles and had light blue jeans on. Her long hair, which was the same colour as mine except for it's light brown highlights, was brushed and past shoulder length.

I looked at her, impressed. "Cool clothes."

"Thanks," She replied with a smile.

As we walked to the table, Eva looked up at me and asked with a sheepish and hopeful smile on her face "Could you braid my hair before we head off to school please?"

"Hmm..." I drifted off in thought while taking a quick glance at the clock.

"Well, I suppose if we finish breakfast early and we still have enough time I can braid your hair," As I smiled back at her.

She beamed at me "Thanks, sissy!" And she ran towards the table.

She finished her cereal in approximately 5 seconds flat and kept rushing me to eat faster.

I finally finished and she put her bowl in the sink, then bounced over to the couch and plopped down on it, waiting for me to follow after her.

Sitting down with her in front of me, I began to braid.

I had always loved my sister's hair. It was so soft and smooth and easy to style, unlike my unruly and uncooperative knots. I really envied her a lot from time to time about it.

After a minute or 2, I finished. I had given her a nice, french side braid going down her shoulder.

"There," I exclaimed, satisfied with my work. "Go take a look," nodding towards the mirror not very far off from where we were.

She bolted over to it and examined herself over and over again, before running back and giving me a huge, tight hug. "It's beautiful." She whispered, her voice muffled because her head was buried in my shirt.

Surprised at her random (but affectionate) gesture, I just patted her head and responded back, "your welcome."

I don't know how long we stayed like that for but we would've stayed longer if Eva hadn't looked at the clock and said: "We might be late."

Instantly snapping out of whatever trance I was in, I said mostly to myself than to Eva, "School, oh yeah."

We put on our coats, grabbed our bags and lunches (right where mom said they would be) and breezed out the door.

Unlike all the other times we walked, Eva was quite. I understood though because I assumed that she was still trying to wake up (still feeling a little bit hazy myself) so we just walked in silence, enjoying and observing the small, subtle fall changes that were in the nature around us.

♡♡♡

After I got to school the day became even better. I and Andrew had a friendly (and flirty) banter about what breed of dogs were the best and it ended with a fit of giggles from both parties.

I was starting to feel really comfortable around him and it was like we were some secret couple that nobody knew about.

...

'If Victoria found out about any of this at all though...' I thought/panicked as paranoia threatened to creep up on me.

I shook my head and tried to calm myself down.

'Victoria won't find out, nor will she ever find out' I stated, trying to believe the words coming out of my mouth but, obviously, failing miserably.

Remembering my secret admirer, I scurried to my locker excited to see what Andrew had brought for me today, all the possibilities buzzing through my head.

But today, there was no gift, just a small slip of paper with these words scribbled onto it.

I was ecstatic, excitement coursing through my veins.

Andrew was finally going to tell me, once and for all, that he liked me!!!!!!!

I tried my hardest to keep calm but I couldn't help letting out a small squeal and dancing around my locker a little bit.

Of course, people stared and gave me weird dirty looks but I didn't care.

At that moment I was on Cloud 9, the epiphany of my happiness.

♡♡♡

I don't think I had ever been happier when I heard the school bell that was signalling the end of the day, ring.

Instead of going through the front doors like I usually did, I waited for everyone to leave and went the other way.

The last thing I wanted was for someone to ruin or interrupt I and Andrews's big romantic moment.

Bursting out of the back doors I started strolling towards the back of the school.

Turning the corner, I was blown away with what I saw.

The person standing in front of me was none other than...