Song: Divenire by Ludovico Einaudi. This is one of my personal favorite songs to play on the piano even though it's like ten pages long.

When I got home, my dad was already there. His car was parked in the driveway.

I unlocked the front door and cautiously stepped inside. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. There were no bottles of alcohol in the kitchen, thank goodness. I sighed in relief and sat down at our old piano.

My fingers automatically came down on the right keys to play my favorite part of a song called Divenire. A few strains into the song, I heard a loud bang upstairs as if somebody had fallen over. I stopped playing abruptly.

A door banged open upstairs and my dad's voice sounded. "Shut up!"

He was obviously intoxicated.

"No," I whispered mostly to myself. "Don't come downstairs. Please. Please."

His stumbling footsteps came closer and closer to the staircase.

"Shit. Shit shit shit." I did the only thing that came to mind: I bolted. Glad I'd kept my converse on, I sprinted towards the door, grabbing my backpack and rushing out of the house as fast as I could. I slammed the door behind me and turned towards my car.

Instead of getting in the driver's seat, I slid into the back. I locked the car from the inside and then sat on the floor of the car, leaning against the seat behind me.

I saw the door open and my dad marched out. He looked terrible. His usually handsome face was red and sweaty. His shirt was rumpled and untucked, sticking out over his creased dress pants. His brown hair stuck out all over the place and hung into his wide, bloodshot eyes.

I curled myself into a ball and my breathing increased. Then it happened again. This time it was worse. The panic filled me, spreading through my body in waves of heat. I couldn't breathe, my throat was completely constricted and I was shaking uncontrollably. I pressed my hands against the driver's seat in front of me. My vision blurred and then went completely dark.

When I regained my senses, I was shaken and sweaty. My eyes hurt from being open so wide and I was light-headed from the lack of oxygen.

Shakily, I raised my head enough to peak at my house. My dad was gone.

I released a sigh of relief and leaned my head against the driver's seat, trying my best to calm down my trembling body. The helplessness of my situation made me feel like crap. There was nothing I could do about it, though. I would just stick it out to the end of high school and then I'd be gone.

The sound of a car's engine pulled me out of my deep thoughts. I saw an expensive-looking silver car pull into Aimee's driveway. The passenger door opened and out climbed the she-devil herself. Wesley climbed out the other side and together they walked slowly towards the house, talking.

At the door Wesley turned to leave but before he could, Aimee grabbed him and attacked him with her lips. It was disgusting. With the amount of lip gloss she wore, he'd be wiping it off his face for the rest of the day. When she shoved her tongue into his mouth, I gagged and averted my eyes. Ew.

After a little while of sitting there with my eyes closed, I finally heard the slam of a car door and the low purr of an engine. The sound receded and I heard Aimee's front door close.

I checked my watch. It was only four o'clock. I still had two hours before I went to Aimee's to work on the project. So, I pulled my iPod out of my pocket, stuck my ear buds in my ears and put on some Beatles music. Then I made myself comfortable on the back seat and fell into a well-deserved slumber.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

When I awoke, it was five to six. I felt like crap. Tired, grumpy and extremely achy. I stuck a piece of mint gum in my mouth, combed through my hair with my fingers and opened the car door. I slung my Vans backpack over my shoulder and walked reluctantly to Aimee's front door.

It didn't take long for the door to swing open after I knocked. Aimee stood before me, looking extremely annoyed at my existence. She stepped aside without a word and I shuffled in, knowing full well that the next couple of hours would be absolute torture.

She led me to her bedroom wordlessly. Her house was laid out similarly to mine. There was a small entrance hall that led to a living room which had a door leading to the kitchen. There was a staircase located in the entrance hall as well.

Her house was fashionably decorated. It didn't feel like a home at all. More like the way a house is set up when someone is trying to sell it.

I let out an audible gasp when she led me into her bedroom. It looked like a pink-hormonal-teen-princess bomb had gone off. Everything was pink except a few choice furniture items that were purple. There were posters of admittedly hot guys on the wall along with printed out selfies of Aimee and her friends. I spotted one picture of her and Wesley together. Maybe it was just me but he looked extremely uncomfortable.

The pink was making my eyes hurt. I wanted to skulk back into my room with my white walls and punk band posters.

"We can sit in the bean-bag chairs," she said pointing toward the corner of her room. Her bean-bag chairs were a light lavender color.

I nodded, slinging my backpack off my back and plopping unceremoniously onto the one closest to the window.

Aimee walked to her desk and brought her pink laptop over, sitting down gracefully on the other bean-bag.

"I can do the research on the issue we were assigned and you can start writing up the stats. We can draw the graphs together afterward," she told me bringing up a new window on her laptop.

Her idea sounded sensible to me so I agreed.

The whole thing went smoothly and we'd finished in a little over an hour. I was surprised our get-together had been so successful.

And then Aimee had to go and ruin it. Just as I was walking out through her door, she grabbed my arm, spinning me around.

"I just wanted to warn you. Stay away from Wesley or I will make your life a living hell." Then she smiled sweetly at me before slamming the door in my face.

Well then, I thought, making my way back over to my house. I sneaked up the stairs towards my dad's bedroom door which was slightly ajar. I peeked around the corner into his room. He was conked out on his bed.

I let out a sigh of relief and walked into my room, closing and locking the door behind me.

I stripped off Elise's clothes, throwing them into my hamper, and pulled on a pair of sweats and an old Mickey Mouse t-shirt.

My dinner was a self-made sandwich that tasted good as hell. I thought about what Aimee had said while munching thoughtfully on a slice of tomato that had fallen into my plate.

I decided that I would just return to my normal routine and forget any run-ins with Wesley and avoid any more in the future.

"Commence operation avoid Aimee and Wesley," I muttered to myself.