“What happened?” I mumbled. “Vat of cooking oil fell over in the kitchen, right as we were heading out the door. Total mess,” she said, her voice filled with exhaustion. She kissed my forehead and stumbled off to her room. I wasn’t sleepy anymore. I could see Kevin’s face in my mind, smirking at me. Two hours later, my alarm was going off. It wasn’t going to be a good day. My mom and I met in the kitchen twenty minutes later, our eyes barely open. Our conversation consisted of halfhearted grunts, more gorilla than human. Somehow we both managed to get out the door. Halfway to school, I realized that I had forgotten to eat. So the first thing I did when I got there was grab breakfast in the caf. The second thing I did was walk up to Kevin and punch him in the mouth. “Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Matt?” he asked, smiling. I responded with a left jab to the other side of his mouth. He expected the first punch, but not the second. A thin line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
