East Kids - Tessa & Elijah

Tessa "Now finally get up, Tessa", the door of my room opens with a swing, while the shrill voice of my mother penetrates my ears. Immediately the light from the hallway streams into my room and blinds me relentlessly. Sighing, I kick my blanket off with both legs before I turn around and cover my body again with the dark piece of cloth. From my throat comes dissatisfied humming. "I know for a fact that you are awake", although I have turned away from her, I can really feel her arms crossed in front of her chest. Her evil glance pierces my back. "Why should I?" I mumble with my face pressed into the soft mattress and sound as if I had a blanket in my mouth. "Today you have to go back to school. The holidays are over," Mom tries to remind me. I could never forget something like that. How can you not know when people no longer have time for nightly parties because they have to 'learn'? "Why should I go there?" Now I don't sound tired anymore, I'm just annoyed. "Because I'll take away your mobile phone and have your cards blocked if you're not at the breakfast table in thirty minutes," she lay down the law now. I take that as a challenge. "You wouldn't dare", now I turn around to her again and lean on my elbow. I'm sure she can see my challenging facial expression through the corridor light shining right on my face. She gives me the same look: "Sleep on and you'll find out." I have definitely inherited my rather provocative nature from her. There's really no other way for me to explain our frequent and intense arguments. With these words she simply turns on the light in my room and slams the door behind her as she leaves the room. A little frightened, I shrug, but don't let it upset me. Why does my mother always have to be as stubborn as I am? Sometimes I have to give in. Unfortunately, I have inherited more than just that from my mother. After all, when she was younger she was just as much a slut as I am. At the thought of what they say about me everywhere in my school, I have to smile. Other girls might be angry about such a reputation, but I don't mind hearing it. Because even that seems to bring the boys less away from me. Instead, it seems like it's driving even more of them into my arms. Maybe it's also because of my relatively high position in the school hierarchy that I have more s****l partners in a week than it might be good, but I don't care about that. Let me help them to become more popular. The main thing is that there's something in it for me too. In the end, all that counts here on the Upper East Side is the money. Since I am quite awake by now, I jump out of bed and look out of the window. Down there, several hundred people are already hurrying back and forth on the sidewalks in work stress, while the yellow taxis keep starting and stopping every few seconds. When I see something like that, I keep asking myself how the passengers don't throw up in all this. I would get sick of it in a matter of seconds. But I often get sick in the car. It takes a few seconds until I can get away from the window. But when I'm ready, I walk straight through my big room to the wardrobe. Thoughtfully I open the two cupboard doors and look at my many pieces of clothing and take out a pile of clothes that I prepared in the evening. If I wouldn't, I would be late every single morning. Unfortunately, there is so much stuff in my closet that it is difficult to decide in a short time for me. But I don't want to complain. After all, I bought all these things myself, so it's my fault. With a look in the mirror, I take off the white nightgown, which I always put on in summer to avoid sweating too much, and then look at myself briefly. Enough people think that my body is beautiful and perhaps even desirable, but I always have something that I don't like. In order not to fall into hours of self-criticism again, I grap my clothes and disappear into the adjacent bathroom. Because I didn't get up early enough, I unfortunately don't have time to jump in the shower anymore, which is why I prefer to wash myself thoroughly before I actually get dressed. After exactly twenty-nine minutes I climb down the stairs. Now my mother can't complain. Eventually I'm even a minute early. In a pretty good mood I let myself fall to my seat at the dining table and cross my legs, which are stuck in tight black jeans. I twist my darkbrown hair, which I have tied to a high ponytail, between my fingers. I definitely got the hair colour from my grandmother. Mom also has brown hair, but mine is some nuances darker. My mother's look is so scanning that I soon feel like food at the supermarket checkout. "Is something wrong?" I ask and put my mobile phone into the right pocket of my leather jacket, which is also black. Now she pinches her eyes together to slits: "No, everything's fine". "Great", the triumph I feel at the moment, is written in my face. Slowly I reach for a knife and start to smear the lower half of my bread roll which is on my plate, with butter. "Oh and ...", from the corner of my eye I can see her looking at me carefully: "Dad sent you something." I completely stop moving for a moment. Immediately I feel my heartbeat accelerating. Gifts are always cool in general, but when my father is chosen, my mood doesn't necessarily rise. "Why? my voice sounds icy. "He just wants to be nice, Tessa", now she gives me a gentle look: "You are important to him. "If I were important to him, he wouldn't have left me", I look at my mother with a firm gaze while I push my bread into my mouth. She tilts her head. The pain that my words leave in her is unmistakable: "He didn't left you, but me". "I can understand that you are trying to tell yourself this, but the truth is that he just abandoned our family", I say, expecting Mom to keep trying to tell me that he still loves me, but I know better. He now has a new family and just threw me, his daughter, away as if I was just a bunch of garbage. When my mother doesn't answer, I just get up with my roll in my hand, from the table and walk over to the kitchen counter on my high heels. There is a packet. Immediately I recognize that it is from my father. Finally it's not even packed. "I go to school then," I say of myself briefly before I walk over to the elevator, grab my backpack and press the button to call the small metal cabin. "Shall I drive you?" she asks carefully. I'm sure she's deliberately not going back on my father. "No, I'd rather drive myself", today the elevator takes a particularly long time again: "But I'm happy to take your car." Doors open at this moment. Before I get in, I take her key out of the bowl that holds all our keys and slip into the elevator. Fortunately, the doors close within a few seconds, so that I can no longer hear her contradiction.