Everything around me seemed to be in slow motion and the sounds of Angel and Andy squealing in the background were muffled. In front of me, my black hair floated in the water as if it was weightless and unattached from my scalp. Holding myself there for as long as possible, I admired the way it looked.

My lungs were screaming for oxygen, however, so I had to lift my head up quickly to avoid drowning in a sink. Trying to muffle the gasping sounds, I buried my face in a towel. It partially helped to wipe away the wild water droplets, as well as calming my rapid breathing. After a minute or two, I was back to normal and I tucked the towel away neatly before I fixed my collar in the mirror.

Pushing my hair out of my eyes, I noted that I desperately needed a haircut. Baseball cap it is. Pulling one on over my damp hair, I unlocked the bathroom door and left the dark room into the dimly lit hallway. The soles of my shoes slapped against the wooden floor as I thudded down the stairs, heading for the front door.

I pulled on an oversized black hoodie and coated my hands in gloves, despite the burning-hot temperatures today. The twins appeared at my side and Andy handed me my parasol, holding his school backpack with a beaming smile.

Looking them both up and down, I noticed they were dressed in the summertime version of their school uniform, which surprised me. I knew it was getting sunnier out, but was it summertime already? How could I miss the fact that my final year of schooling was coming to an end?

I guess that means less time outside...

With a sigh, I slid on my sunglasses and opened the front door. Mum had already left for work, so I didn't yell goodbye to her, leading the twins outside silently. Key in hand, I held the parasol high over my head as I strolled to my car, the twins running ahead in a battle for the front seat.

"I've never seen them so excited to go to school." I muttered to myself, following behind slowly.

Andy's expulsion was finally over, which was a relief for me because, as much as I love Andy, he can get a bit of a handful when he's in your shadow at all hours of the day, sulking because Angel gets to go to school and he doesn't. Especially now that Mary, Connor's sister, was on the scene. I suspected Andy felt a bit replaced by her.

Andy had beat Angel to the car, so he triumphantly climbed into the front seat while I pulled my seatbelt on, adjusting my seat slightly. After checking that they had both been properly buckled in, I put the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway swiftly. With the car in first gear now, I was just about to set off when I heard a scream.

Wincing, I glanced all around to spot where the hell it came from.

Of course, stumbling across his lawn like a drunk, came that odd neighbour: Connor. I sighed slightly, winding down my window to see what the hell he wanted. We hadn't spoken since he had followed me to the skatepark. He had stuck around for about an hour before leaving. The kid was full of questions and we talked extensively about my experience with my condition and how it had impacted my life.

I thought he had decided I was strange and that there would be no further interactions after the incident. Turns out I was wrong, however, as he appeared to be bounding towards me and pleading for me to wait.

His hair was dishevelled and he had fresh toothpaste stains on his shirt, making me feel like he was mid-brushing his teeth when he decided to run out of the house screaming for whatever reason. His little sister was still on their porch, closing the front door behind the careless teen.

Connor looked slightly sheepish as he approached my window, out of breath from his sporadic sprint out of the house.

"Thank you so much for stopping!" He beamed, "I would be a dead man if it weren't for you, Daxx."

"What do you mean?" I frowned, glancing at the clock.

If he held us up any longer, we would be late.

"Did I tell you that you look dashing today? The sunglasses and cap look suits you. Very much miss paparazzi vibes." Connor teased, letting his eyes roll over me once or twice.

"Oh, flattery? What is it that you need exactly, Connor?" I tutted, shaking my head at his attempt at a compliment.

At first, I had been sort of annoyed that he had followed me that one time, but he hadn't made of fun of me- at least not to my face- and had actually asked me about the stars and been interested in what I had to say about my condition. I was shocked that he had never star gazed before, so I'm glad he got to do it at least once. I'm not sure why I cared whether he had tried it or not, but it seemed important to me that everyone got to go stargazing at least once in their life, I guess.

"How did you know I wanted something?" Connor frowned, his façade dropping.

"It wasn't hard to tell, you're about as easy to read as an open book." I shrugged, "Just hurry up and get in."

I didn't have to tell Connor twice. Before I knew it he had flung the backdoor open and leapt into the car, nearly forgetting his little sister in his rush. Mary's face was like thunder as she entered behind him, strapping herself in with a scowl. Connor pulled a face at her and closed the door, beaming at me to let me know they were ready to go.

Taking my hat off, I flung it onto the dash and turned to look at them properly in the backseat.

"Everything okay, Mary?" I asked cautiously, her face lighting up in surprise as I addressed her.

"Connor made me skip breakfast. Again. He saw you were leaving and ran off, saying he'd leave me behind if I didn't run too." Mary pouted, "Mum had to go to work early, so she asked Connor to get me ready for school and walk me there, but he only woke me up ten minutes ago."

"Little rat." Connor grumbled.

One glance towards a guilty looking Connor confirmed this as true. I was wondering why their mum hadn't driven them today, like usual. Opening my glovebox, I pulled out a box of breakfast bars and passed them behind to the eager child. I kept them in there because, like Mary, the twins get unbearably irritable when they're hungry.

Staring the engine, I set off before we really were late.

"Help yourself to them." I told Mary, pulling off from the curb finally.

In my mirror, I could see Connor munching on a breakfast bar too, which made me chuckle. The sound made Connor's eyes whip up to me with that same expression from before, but I ignored him to focus on driving. Ignoring Connor seemed to be a difficult thing to accomplish.

Connor leaned forwards in his seat, poking my side to get my attention. How irresponsible of him. I shot him a stern look, but he just furrowed his eyebrows back, as if to ask what was wrong. With a sigh, I gestured for him to say whatever the hell was so important he felt the need to distract me from driving.

"You know you really shouldn't do that." I muttered, "I have three kids and a man-child in the car. I'd hate to crash."

"Hey!" Connor pouted, "I just wanted to say that you seem really good with kids. I always see you looking after those two, and you knew why Mary was being grumpy. I would have just chalked it down to her being annoying."

"Observational." I remarked, shifting up to third gear as we got onto the main roads.

"What I'm trying to say is that you should work with kids, or something. You seem to be good with them." Connor shrugged, leaning back into his seat once again.

Work with kids? I had never really thought about what I wanted to do, but that didn't seem like a terrible decision. Considering it had come from Connor, it was quite shockingly rational.

"Thanks." I mumbled, a genuine smile dying to express itself on my lips.

Nobody had ever told me that before.

To relieve some of the awkward atmosphere now lingering, I turned up the radio since I had noticed one of Andy's favourite songs had come on. Andy cheered and began to drum along to it on the dashboard, which was incredibly annoying, but he didn't really notice. God, the car was overrun with distractions today. At least Andy is seven and doesn't know any better, unlike Connor.

As Andy sang along, I half noticed some semi-explicit lyrics popped up that I hadn't ever paid attention to in the song. With all of the drums and guitar, the lyrics kind of get lost in the chaos. It was my bad that he knew that kind of thing, but I'm sure pop songs had stuff like that in them too.

I was going to ignore it, until Angel called him out on singing the words, much to my surprise. They then began to bicker about Andy singing sexist swear words, which resulted in a migraine for everyone in the car. I was proud that Angel had taken on my words about feminism, but it would be a miracle if I could get us to their school in one piece at this rate.

"It's not my fault, it's the song lyric!" Andy exclaimed defensively, "Besides, I don't like girls anyway. They're yucky."

"Oh, so you like boys?" Connor teased back, resulting in me shooting him a wary look through the mirror.

"Don't add fuel to the fire, Connor." I grumbled, "They're children."

"No!" Andy yelled, "I don't like anyone. I only like Daxx. Everyone else is mean."

"I like you too, Andy. Ignore the idiots." I tried to reassure him, a tad worried about his hostility.

"What about the song!" Angel huffed, throwing her hands in the air.

"Andy didn't mean anything by his words, he was just repeating the song. It's my fault, really, for letting him listen to it." I reasoned, "You can have ice-cream to make up for it."

Angel seemed satisfied with that, climbing out of the car eagerly behind Mary. The two of them had been getting along really well by the sounds of it and Angel had even asked if Mary could come round some time for a sleepover.

Asking Connor to walk the girls to the school entrance, I hung back with Andy in the car. He was still scowling in his seat after his outburst, his knees tucked under his chin defensively. He couldn't go into school on his first day back from a suspension acting like this.

"Are you sure you don't like anyone?" I approached the subject cautiously, worried.

I didn't want him to be friendless.

"I don't like anyone. They're all a waste of time, especially Jimmy Wellot. He calls you names." Andy fumed, filled with hostility.

A knock sounded on the door and I glanced out, seeing the one and only Jimmy Wellot and his mother stood in the carpark. Speak of the devil, huh? Pulling my hat on quickly and pulling my hood over it, I climbed out of the car to greet them, beckoning Andy to follow suit. Reluctantly, he did as he was told.

"Hello, Mrs. Wellot." I greeted, sending her my most charming smile and adjusting my hat on my head.

"I just wanted to have my son apologize to you for the awful comments he made." She spoke, keeping a strained smile, as fake as mine, on her face.

"It's no trouble, really. I'm beyond sorry for Andy's reaction to Jimmy's words. He's a bit sensitive because the other kids aren't as understanding and nice about things. We're dealing with it, so you don't need to worry." I explained, a hand on Andy's shoulder.

"That's great to hear." Mrs. Wellot cooed fakely, "I think it would be very healing if both boys were to hug it out, to show that there are no hard feelings and to move on from this incident."

Her beady eyes looked from boy to boy expectantly and I winced at the suggestion. What a terrible idea. I couldn't really say much as she nudged Jimmy towards Andy, both boys awkwardly waddling towards each other with bright red faces. They hugged for less than a micro-second before jumping away from each other as if it was torture to spending even a second touching. They both looked anywhere other than at each other as Mrs. Wellot beamed down at them.

I raised an eyebrow; it was totally unnecessary for her to force them to hug.

"I would also like to invite the twins to Jimmy's birthday party this Saturday to make sure they all stay friends." She smiled falsely, handing me a blue envelope with 'Andy and Angel' written on it in silver, spiralling letters.

"Thank you, I'll make sure they go." I grinned, waving goodbye to her as they walked away.

As soon as she was out of view, I let my smile drop from my face, a scowl promptly replacing it.

I hate that woman.