You were tired.

Well, tired was an understatement. Most anything was. Even exhausted felt too minor to describe how you felt.

Your distanced mother was often out of town for work. Leaving you to take care of your five younger siblings most of the time — and the fact you literally lived in a haunted house did not help whatsoever. You did all the work around the house, cleaning, chores, cooking, taking care of everyone mentally and physically, etc... You worked two minimum wage jobs — one a waitress and the other a barista — because you had to pay for groceries and the bills because your mom didn’t even pay for those. You went to school regularly. You were failing almost everything and your teachers did not give you an easy time about it. You also couldn’t drive yet, so you either had to walk or bike to anywhere you needed to go. The constant nightmares that haunted your sleep did not help with your exhaustion at all.

This labour started when you went into sixth grade. And you lost most of your friends. Mostly because they said you didn’t commit to the friendships at all and barely spent anytime with them.

But Kai stayed. He never, ever abandoned you just because you couldn’t always spend time with him. He knew why you were so busy, and the ‘friends’ that left you because of it pissed him off like no other.

Now, he was pretty much your only friend and you were his only friend. Even if you could only really spend time together at school, you still were very close. But luckily, most of your classes were together.

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Today, was like any other. Every day just repeated. It was numb.

Right now, you and Kai were walking to your next class — math. The hallway was loud and crowded, some people trying to get to class and some people just annoyingly hanging out in the way.

Kai could see. The dark circles under your eyes showed how tired you are, so did the blank yet also sad look on your face. You just looked like you needed a hug and a nap.