~Dan~
-----

I'll be honest when I say that today isn't go like how I expected it to go. But it was unexpected in a good way. I mean, it's always good meeting a fellow Muse fan.
"Where the hell have you been?" Grayson demanded as I arrived home. "Lucas and I have been texting you for hours! We were just getting ready to give up and go home!"
I took out my phone and saw that I had a ton of text messages from the both of them.
"Sorry guys." I told them since it was really the only thing that I could think of saying. "I was studying with Phil and I guess I didn't hear my phone."
"Oh, okay." Grayson said, his features changing from being really mad at me for not answering his or Lucas' text to a calmer expression. "Well, there's the school talent show coming up and Lucas signed the band up. The winner of the shoe gets to perform at the spring concert towards the end of the year."
"We also get money!" Lucas said excitedly, joining in on the conversation by standing next to Grayson. "Six grand to be exact!"
"Are you for real?"
"Dan, would I lie about money?"
"Of course not." I laughed. "But guys, this is really big! We're going to perform in front of the whole school! And if we win, we'll perform in front of the entire town!"
"We'll have to practice like crazy." Grayson said. "But since the talent show isn't for another three months, we'll stick with our regular rehearsal schedule."
"Sounds good." Lucas nodded. "Well, see you tomorrow at school Dan."
They both slapped me on the back as we all went our separate ways. I went in the house instantly feeling hungry. Everything seemed normal. Dad was doing the cooking since Mom wasn't great at it while Mom was sitting at the table with Adrian. The both of them were on their phones. Mom was probably playing Candy Crush while Adrian was probably on Instagram liking a bunch of people's pictures.
"Dan, how do you always have perfect timing for dinner time but not any other time?" Dad asked me as I joined Mom and Adrian at the table.
I just shrugged.
"So how was your day today Dan?" Mom asked me, sighing in frustration. "Your brother got suspended today."
"What on earth did you do?" I immediately asked him.
Adrian smirked as he put his phone on his pocket. "Someone thought it would be a good idea to say more pretty rude things to my face and I decided to give them what they deserved."
Mom sighed once more. "He broke a kid's nose for saying things that were left unmentioned by the kid's request."
By Adrian's request.
All I did was simply nod.

*****

"Adrian.." I knocked on my little brother's door a while after dinner had ended. I needed to talk to him before he was sent away to take care of our great grandma as a form of punishment for getting suspended.
"Go away!"
"Adrian, please. We need to talk."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"Yes there is. We need to talk about why you got suspended."
"God, you sound so much like Mom."
"You were doing so well. You were actually staying out of trouble."
"No shit Sherlock. I was actually happy until today. Everything got fucked up today."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No. Go the fuck away."
I sighed in frustration. But I should've known better. Adrian's a closed book. He's also quite difficult to read. Not because he's a boring one, but because he's just hard to understand. One day he could be completely fine and the next he could hate you. At least, that's how he acts with me.

*****

"I feel like I've done something wrong."
"Why?" Cat asked me. We were talking to each other on the phone.
"Adrian's not talking to me."
"Oh." She reacted strangely when I mentioned his name. It was as if he had never come up in conversation despite me introducing her to my entire family. "That's quite odd. I wonder what's up."
"He got suspended again. My parents are sending him away to my great grandma's house for the three days that he's suspended as a form of punishment. He can't bring his phone or anything."
"That sucks. But I guess it'll teach him not to get suspended."
"Hopefully it will." I said to her. "Because he got expelled from several schools when we lived in England. Here he's only been expelled once but I'm worried that at the rate he's going, he's going to be expelled from his current school."
"I'm sure he'll be fine."
"Hopefully."

*****

I couldn't sleep that night. Thoughts of both Adrian and Phil were keeping me awake.
Why is Adrian such a closed book?
Why did Phil lose his legs?
Those were the two main questions that buzzed through my head as I laid there with the faint light coming from my night light. Yes, I'm really a freshman in high school who still sleeps with a night light. I honestly can't help that I'm afraid of the dark. It's just one of those things about me that I can't explain. I've had the fear for as long as I can remember.
Maybe I was afraid of the demons. You know, the demons that you seem to wrestle with in your head on a restless night. Or maybe I was afraid of the evil that lies within the darkness. Whatever the root of my fear was, it's been eating me up ever since I was a child. And I have absolutely no control over it.

My mind continued to wander from Adrian to Phil to pondering over my fear of the dark in an constant cycle before I felt my eyelids become heavy. The darkness that danced across my vision when my eyes closed made my heart skip a beat or possibly even two or three. But I was comforted when I entered the world of my dreams and when I could see the light again.
The lullabies can put you to sleep but they can also keep you up all night.