Thanks, Mom

I haven't been able to stop thinking about last night, or early this morning, or whatever. It was around midnight but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that Alina is finally sending me heart emojis again! She hasn't done that since her and that fuck boy started dating! I need to celebrate. But what should I even do? It's not like I should invite Alina to celebrate with me. Wait, what if she thinks I'm weird because I'm making such a big deal out of it?

There's a knock at my door and I nearly scream like a little kid, high-pitched voice and everything. "Breakfast is ready," My sister peaks her head into my room and immediately follows it up with a look of judgement as she sees me cowering under my sheets. "Loser." She laughs at me as she leaves my room and goes back upstairs.

"Fuck you!" I shout back and jump out of my bed.

"Language!" My mother shouts and I immediately freeze up.

She doesn't work today? Does dad work today? No, no way. If he was here then he'd already be down here and grounding me for swearing.

After hesitation between leaving my room or not, I finally get the balls to go upstairs where I see everyone, except dad, thank god, sitting down and eating breakfast.

I take my seat and start devouring my food. Eventually I ask, "Is dad working today?"

My mom nods, a few of her long, brown curls get in her way as she takes a bite of a pancake. She blows it out of the way and a strand gets stuck on her deep, pink lips. "Ah, fuck." She stops immediately and looks me dead in the eye, her dark brown eyes showing the look of warning she is giving me. I avoid eye contact, acting like I never heard a thing and she smiles.

"Do you not work today?" I finally get the guts to ask as I pour some more maple syrup on my pancakes.

She smiles brightly and shakes her head, getting even more hair in her way, "Nope, I got a promotion."

"Wait really?" I stand up and speed over to her, wrapping her into a large hug. She holds me tightly and laughs at my burst of energy. We break the hug and I go back to my seat, smiling proudly at her. "So your schedule has changed too?"

"Yep and I get better neighbourhoods too!" She takes a long sip of her coffee. My mother has been a realtor since before I was even born. Which is why I'm so happy for her, she deserves that promotion. "I do also suspect that your father will be getting a promotion soon as well."

My father is an engineer and a security guard, which is actually really good because of his height and intimidating presence. One glare from that guy and you'll be pissing yourself, don't get me started if he yells at you.

"Which one?" Keita asks, shoveling a handful of bacon into my mouth. He doesn't want to have pancakes because he doesn't want to be too full when he goes for his workout. So he usually makes himself something or tells mom specifically what he wants and how much to make.

Mom smacks his knee, "Didn't I ever tell you to never eat like that?"

"Sorry," He mumbles, slobber pours out from his mouth. He starts to choke and mom rolls her eyes then smacks him on the back a few times which manages to help him stop.

"Pig," She slides his mug closer to him which Keita immediately starts chugging it. I'm unsure of what he's drinking though, it can either be a coffee or a protein shake. Although one time before I dared him to mix his protein powder in with his coffee and he nearly threw up all over the room. Even though he almost kicked my ass, I still don't regret a thing. "And he's probably going to get it from his security guard job."

"Does that mean that both of you will be home more often?" I ask with a half-excited, half-scared smile. It would be amazing if mom was home more often, but I'm a little conflicted when it comes to dad. Don't get me wrong, he's my father, so of course I love him, but he does still have his bad days. Though when it's a good day he's a lot of fun to spend the day with. One day when I was younger and he was in a really good mood, he took me out of school early and brought me to a theme park. I still hold onto that memory every single day.

"Not sure yet," She shrugs and takes another sip of her coffee. "There's still the case that he isn't actually getting the promotion, and if that's the case, then we never had this conversation. Got it?"

We all nod, I almost spill a bit of juice onto myself as I was doing it. "But what's your new schedule like?"

"Well I'll be around for more mornings," She stares off into space like she's trying to remember her schedule. "Which means you two won't be late to school again," She gestures to Keita and I, we both nervously chuckle and glance at each other. "Although that means that I won't be home until around dinner, maybe later."

"So you have a day off today then?" Keita asks and immediately follows it up with a howl of a burp.

"Pig," Mom bursts into laughter once more. "And yeah, I have today off."

"Hell yeah!" I cheer and struggle with biting a chunk out of my pancakes, dropping syrup on me as an outcome.

She rolls her eyes, "You're a bunch of slobs."

"Sorry," I mumble and stare at the bunch of syrup on my shorts.

"So, what do you guys have planned for today?" She finishes her coffee and gives us her complete attention.

"Well I'm planning on streaming later and then hangout with Alina once she finishes school," I smile.

"Ooh Alina?" She raises an eyebrow and smirks.

Rolling my eyes, I finish my pancakes. "It's not like that, mom."

"That's the girl that you boys got suspended fighting for right?" She looks at both Keita and I.

"Yeah," Keita mumbles and picks at his food.

"How about we go to see a movie with her?" She offers and I immediately burst from joy.

"Yes!" Everybody gives me coy smirks with raised eyebrows. "What? That sounds like a lot of fun."

My mom laughs, "Alright then. I'll look at some movie times, and you can invite her to come along today."

"Wait," I stop and give her a confused look. "We're going today?"

"Yup," She smiles wide. "So you better invite her already."

I feel an overwhelming amount of emotions, a majority of them being joy and excitement. "Thanks, mom!"