When my alarm goes off, Hallie has already made her way out of my bed, and the sun is shining through my window.

I roll over to check my phone, and as I'm scrolling through the notifications, I see an alert from my Gmail account, which is highly unusual because who the hell emails anymore unless it's college spam.

From: grahamtheman59@gmail.com

I rub my eyes to make sure I'm reading this correctly.

Hi Scarlett. I hope you still use this email...I would have texted you, but I don't have your number, I just had this class roster from English class. I feel horrible about you being on crutches and everything so I wanted to offer my help at school if you need it. You know, to carry books, and keep you from falling over and stuff.

Anyway, see you soon.

-Graham Ryan

I close out of the app before launching my phone onto my bed and heading into the bathroom to get a shower. Graham Ryan just freaking emailed me. Who reaches out via email nowadays? There are so many other forms of media he could have gotten in touch with me on.

I stare at myself in the mirror, mostly at the dark circles under my eyes due to the lack of sleep I got because of my parent's fighting, my back killing me, and sharing my full-size bed with Hallie. I'll have to find my Tarte shape tape to cover the dark circles.

I pull the large tee shirt that I slept in over my head and kick my shorts off before hopping in the shower and letting the warm water hit my back. Squeezing a hefty amount of Bath and Body Works Marshmallow Pumpkin Latte shower gel onto my pink sponge, I lather it all over my body and then wash my hair.

When I get out, I take a Tylenol, wrap myself in my towel, pluck a few stray hairs from my eyebrows and head back into my bedroom. My back is feeling much better today, either because of the Tylenol, or it’s my brain lying to me because I'm delirious from not sleeping.

In my room, Hallie is sitting on my bed in her school uniform with the world’s most perfect messy bun sitting atop her head. She's nose deep in her phone, and I contemplate kicking her out before remembering the rough night that we'd both had. Sometimes, very rarely, she’s tolerable in the mornings. Hopefully, today will be one of those days.

I take a step toward my dresser, and she gasps at something on her phone. When I spin around, I immediately realize that it's not her phone in her hands, it's mine.

Her eyes are big, and her mouth forms an O.

"Graham Ryan emailed you?" she squeals. Of course, my sister would be one of those teenage girls that get excited over Graham Ryan.

I hold the towel around my body and run over to snatch my phone out of her hands.

"Out! You little brat!" I check the sent box to make sure she didn't answer on my behalf and point towards my door. She sticks her tongue out at me as I slam the door in her face. When she knows I’m not going to reopen it and hit her, she starts singing.

"Graham and Scarlett sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G," she giggles at herself before running toward her bedroom. I guess today is not one of those rare days where she’s not insufferable. I truly do not know how I haven't managed to kill her yet.

After changing my phone passcode to something Hallie won't be able to figure out, I head over to my closet to get dressed. I decide on a simple white button-down, black slim fit dress pants that are the closest thing to leggings allowed in school, and throw on my Mary Jane Dr. Martens. I grab a forest green cardigan from the back of my desk chair and slowly put it on to avoid inflicting pain on myself. Staring into my vanity mirror at myself, I spritz some leave-in-conditioner into my hair and braid it loosely down my back, conceal the circles under my eyes, and apply a light coating of mascara before grabbing my crutches and heading out of my bedroom.

When the door swings open, my mother and the she-devil herself are standing outside of my bedroom. I stifle an eye roll, assuming I'm about to get a lecture for kicking Hallie out of my room.

"Yes?" I stare at the two of them and tighten my grip on my crutches.

"Hallie said she slept in your room last night," Mom rests her hand on Hallie's shoulder, and Hallie shifts closer to her. Both of their eyes look so tired, and I can tell, even with Mom’s pounds of makeup, that she didn't sleep well last night either. "I'm sorry if we kept you two up," she gives me a faint smile.

"It's okay," I lie. Nothing has been okay with us for months, but I’ve been spending so much time at the arena to get away from it all that I hadn’t even realized how awful it might be. Given the look on her face right now, I assume things are worse than I thought. I try not to show my anxiety because I don’t want Hallie to think that I think something is wrong.

"Your father and I would like to have a family dinner tonight,” she presses her lips together and her nose twitches. “So, can you both be home right after school?" She looks down at Hallie who is about to protest skipping her private session, but at the sight of my mom's expression, she holds it back.

"Yeah, of course,” it’s not like I have anywhere else to be. I can’t skate. I can’t do anything with these stupid crutches and back injury.

Some people may enjoy family dinners, but in this household, they never bring anything good. In this household, we don't sit around the table playing Monopoly or cards together; we sit in silence until someone breaks the awkwardness and starts talking, usually about something that none of us wants to hear.

When we get to the car, Hallie takes her seat next to me, and she's scrolling through her phone, way too quiet for my liking. On a normal day I’d prefer her lack of enthusiasm in the morning, but today, I know something is off.

"What're you thinking?"

"Nothing," she shrugs. I can tell from the way her eyes dart straight back to her phone that she’s lying.

"Well. I'm thinking that someone died or something. Remember they got like this with grandma?" I open the Spotify app on my phone and hand it to her.

"I get to control the music?" Her crystal blue eyes grow wide, and she smiles for the first time in the last twelve hours.

I nod and she squeals, which causes me to wince. It’s way too early for that.

"Just stay out of my emails," I raise an eyebrow at her. She laughs and puts The Fray on. "Do you have to pick such depressing music all of the time?" she starts laughing again.

"This is good music, Scar. Everyone loves The Fray," her words come out so confidently as if she knows everything. "So are we gonna talk about Graham Ryan emailing you or are we just pretending that didn't happen?" Her voice is high, and I swear she almost clasps her hand together like a cheerleader as she says his name.

I roll my eyes and groan. "He just wants to help me out because his friends are the reason I fell," I look at her, and her eyes grow wide.

"That is not the only reason, Scar," she giggles. "Boys don't just dig up old papers for an email for someone they want to help out," she puts air quotes around the words help out and rolls her eyes dramatically.

"You need to stop hanging out with the older kids at school.”

When I turn the music up, and she knows the conversation is over. Her tongue flicks off the roof of her mouth in frustration, which my mom would yell at her for.

The whole car ride to school all I can think of is how much I regret letting Hallie hang out with Sienna and I during sleepovers. She's way too mature for her own good, sometimes. I guess when it comes down to it, though, I'd rather her be putting unrealistic thoughts about Graham Ryan into my head opposed to her crying because of our parent's fighting.

When I pull up to her school, she jumps out of my car without a goodbye and runs to greet her posse. At least for the next eight hours, we will be able to pretend that things aren't falling apart at home.