= ARDEN
A fist slamming on my bedroom door awoke me.
"You up?" came the voice of one of my sisters, my mushy morning brain unable to differentiate which one through the closed door.
Despite going to bed early and presumably sleeping in late, I still felt exhausted. So I turned over and passed out again.
"Sleepin', huh?" A deep demonic voice grumbled into my ear.
I yelled (a very manly deep-pitched yell, thank you, definitely not a scream) and flailed, getting caught in my sheets while I made an effort to escape the evil being. Only when I managed to press myself completely against the wall to put the maximum possible distance between us did my brain catch up to what was happening. Amerys, my eldest sister, was bent in two gasping for air between bouts of uncontrollable laughter.
Adrenaline-fueled panic faded into red-cheeked embarrassment then anger. I threw my pillow at her. "You jerk!"
She parried my projectile and grabbed onto my throwing arm. Without the panic juice flooding my veins, my exhaustion returned full-force.
"Time to get up!" She physically dragged my boneless self out of bed like I weighed nothing at all. I didn't even bother resisting. Not that it would do much good versus her. I learned long ago that resisting led to pain. Well, more pain. Getting dragged across carpet wasn't exactly my idea of a good time.
"Lemme sleep."
"We're gonna be late."
I gave a zombie-like groan until cool glass pressed against my lips.
"Drink," my other sister Esmera said as she poured.
My favorite beverage, whole milk, hit my tastebuds. I loved the rich, creamy flavor. The first gulp perked me up enough to take the glass from her.
"Thanks, Mera," I mumbled around the rim.
My eyes half-opened to see Esmera give a slight smile. Even in my sleepy state I could read the concern.
This exhaustion had been going on for months now, slowly escalating in severity. How long did I sleep last night? Twelve hours? Thirteen? I barely got through watering my plants before crashing into bed. I hoped I remembered them all.
I drained the rest of the glass as fast as I could drink it. It worked its coffee-like magic, injecting vigor straight into my veins. Say what you will about living in rural Wisconsin, but the dairy here is great.
Mom assured me I was fine when I asked to go to the doctor. I couldn't just
go
to the doctor when I felt awful. This was 'Merica, where we were so free we lacked basic medical access despite spending more on healthcare than every other country in the world with worse outcomes. Woo, middlemen! I envied the other counties with governments not completely captured by lobbying interest groups.
Because corporations were
people
here. That made total sense.
Mom had insisted that my excess sleep was natural. Growing young men, according to her, needed more rest. When she said that I couldn't help but bark a laugh. Growing? I was still five foot nothing last I checked. And I checked a lot. Like embarrassingly often. Often enough that each of my family members had seen me turn leveling my hand on the top of my head while standing straight against the wall into an awkward stretch when they came into my room unannounced.
The world wasn't kind to short men. I didn't want to be one of them. But sometimes you're dealt a bad hand in life and had to roll with it.
My internet research told me my condition was either mono or cancer. That certainly didn't worry me. Nope. Not at all. It was easy not to worry. Because worrying took energy. Energy I lacked. So my days became one long drawn-out 'meh'.
Out of everything, I really missed my hikes. Being out in the woods always made me happy, but my lethargy prevented those long strolls through nature nowadays.
I got my feet underneath me, rather than dragging them underneath like limp noodles. "Okay, okay, I'm up."
Amerys stopped bearing my weight. My knees, with the strength of wet cardboard, almost crumpled. They locked off just in time to stay standing after a single stumble.
Amerys walked around into view to stand next to her fraternal twin sister. They both shared a remarkably similar face, taking strong resemblance from mom. But where Esmera inherited mom's straight ink-black hair, Amerys managed to be a sandy blonde. Taken from dad, I supposed, not that we'd ever met the flake. Mom never talked about him.
The one thing that slightly lessened my height worries was looking at my sisters. We all had the same eye level. Together we hadn't really grown much at all since middle school. Some kind of strange sibling height solidarity. As time went on and our peers went through normal puberty we got left behind. Schoolkids nicknamed us the short squad. The tiny trio. The midget menagerie. As a guy it hurt what little ego I had.
Amerys owned her height, somehow looking down her nose at people despite having to crane her head back to look them in the eye. Even now she crossed her arms and frowned at me in a way that made me feel less significant to her magnificence. "Are you going to get ready or do you need us to give you a sponge bath too?"
Oh, right,
school
. I was still in my underwear and a comfy tee whereas the twins were fully dressed and ready minus shoes and coats.
Esmera snatched the glass out of my hand then pulled me towards the bathroom. "C'mon, some of us actually learn things in school."
"Not everyone is a nerd like you."
Esmera was in all the advanced classes she could take, which wasn't much in our small town high school. But she still strove for her best.
"Says plant boy. Go soak up some water." She shoved me into the bathroom and pulled the door shut.
"Hey, plants are cool!" I yelled back through the door, my voice reverberating in that strange way that seems to happen in every bathroom ever.
"Said no cool person ever." Her muffled voice rebutted through the wall. "And hurry up!"
"Sir Attenborough is cool," I muttered.
Towel-clad, I emerged from the bathroom after taking the patented turbo-fast guy shower. Wet, soap, rinse, dry. Did some parts get neglected in the quest for clean? Yeah. Did I hit all the important parts? Of course. The less important bits would just have to wait until I had more time to scrub. The teeth got some love afterwards too.
Yesterdays clothes made it into the hamper and a new set went on. I shuddered at the memory of how long it took to find decent outfits. It hurt to shop in the kids section of the store. But adults didn't really exist in my size. Jeans and a t-shirt today. Not much to think about, really.
"Catch," Amerys said.
I turned only to get decked by a speeding sack of bricks barreling into my gut. It knocked the wind out of me. I doubled over while it thudded against my feet. On second look, it was my backpack. Fully loaded with all my books it probably weighed more than I did.
"My bad," she apologized.
With lots of totally manly and not in any way pathetic grunts I donned my one-way ticket to a scoliosis diagnosis. Jacket in hands and shoes on my feet I joined my sisters in the car. Amerys drove while Esmera took shotgun and I was left with the back seat to myself.
