Rarae Aves

Grrrrr. The fifteen-year-old’s stomach grumbled loudly, stirring her awake. “Mmm…” she moaned, rolling on her side to check her alarm clock. It was a quarter past midnight. She rubbed her eyes, thinking about the dream she had just had. She had dreamt about Dr. Sunderland, the psychiatrist she used to visit as a child. “Man, I haven’t thought about him in forever,” she whispered. Having just had two dreams about her father, Amber couldn’t help but have him lingering on her mind. She reached up to the heart-shaped necklace around her bedpost, and just held the pendant in her hand for a little while, stroking the design with her thumb.

THUMP! Something could be heard bumping into the wall. Amber could tell from the direction the sound was coming from, that it had happened in Delia’s room. That was followed by some laughter coming from both Delia and Keith. The fact that Keith felt the need to commentate, “Damn girl, I didn’t know you liked to play rough like that,” didn’t make it any better.

Amber snarled. “Idiots,” she muttered, moving to lie on her back. Her neck ached a little due to the lack of proper support for her head. “Thanks for taking my pillow, Delia,” she reflected sarcastically.

Rubbing her stomach, she debated on whether to try to sneak something to eat out of the kitchen or not. Delia had told her not to leave her room for the night, but she was probably too busy at the moment to even hear her. However, if Delia did catch her, she didn’t want to have to put up with her mouth or punishment. After all, she did threaten to take out her mattress. She was supposed to get up in a few hours, anyway. She could just wait until breakfast, right? She closed her eyes, and was almost asleep. Grrrrr. “Meh, whatever. I’m going to see if there’s any of that pizza left,” she decided, rising out of bed.

She tiptoed past Delia’s room and down the hall successfully. Once she inched down the staircase cautiously, she made her way towards the kitchen. “What?” she complained once she opened the fridge, “It’s all gone? Already?” Amber knew how much Delia ate on average during meals, and that was pretty much a normal portion. So, it had to have been Keith that hogged the rest of it. “That jerk,” she said under her breath. She decided to make a couple of peanut butter sandwiches, instead.

“Mmm,” she hummed when she sniffed the inside of the jar, once opening it. She was too busy spreading the peanut butter on the whole wheat bread to pay attention to the figure approaching nearby. After assembling the sandwiches together, she took a couple bites out of one before taking the plate and turning to exit. She jumped and gasped, heart stopping for a second, when she almost collided with another living form. Luckily, she didn’t drop her sandwiches and make a mess.

“Whoa, I didn’t know you were even down here,” Keith said as he stood in the doorway, fully clothed, “I came down here for a snack. Almost bumped right into you.”

“I was just leaving,” Amber informed, stepping out of his way, letting him through.

“What are you even doing up this late anyway?” he asked, running his fingers through his bleached blonde hair, thick with sticky hair gel, “Don’t you have school in the morning or something?”

“Yeah,” she rejoined dryly, “I got hungry. Now, are you going to keep asking me questions about what I do in my own house because it’s none of your business?”

“Geeze, sassy,” he remarked. She just ignored him and started leaving. “Hey, wait,” he stopped her, tone of voice soft.

“What?”

“Your name is Amber, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, don’t worry, Amber. I won’t tell her you were down here or anything…because I know she’d wig out on you if she knew.”

Amber looked off to the side, not entirely sure what to think. Was he kidding? Would he go and tell Delia the second he went back into the bedroom? Why would he not tell? It wasn’t like he cared. More importantly, why would he be concerned about Delia “wigging out” on her? He was weird. “Whatever,” she grunted, “Tell her, don’t tell her; do what you want. I don’t care.”

“Well, you don’t have to have such a smart mouth about it,” he sassed. Amber just rolled her eyes and went back to her bedroom, luckily not getting caught.

“Man, that was so weird,” Amber spoke to herself after shutting and locking the door to her bedroom, “He gives me the creeps.” After eating on her bed, she put the plate on the floor, figuring leaving it there for a few hours wasn’t enough to attract bugs or other types of pests. “She’ll dump him soon,” she mumbled sleepily as she began to drift off, “Nothing will come of this relationship. The sooner she dumps him, the better.” Oh, if only she knew how wrong she was.