nathan dawson's pov:

"Mom said you need to get up or you'll be late." Jonathan barged in my room and started pulling away my blanket. My first reaction was to tell him to piss off and throw a pillow at him, and if it had been Nicholas I would definitely have done so. 

"I knooow." I groaned, trying to pull back the blanket. When I failed to do so, I had no other options than to sit up and face the day. While I got dressed, Jonathan sat on the edge of my bed and waited, his expression almost as grumpy as mine.

"Last one downstairs will have to clean up my room." I challenged, wanting to cheer him up.

"Your room? This mess?" Jonathan gaped at me, shooting up from the bed. When I sprinted out of the room, he screamed after me: "Not fair! If I win, you'll clean mine too."

I contemplated running as fast as I could, to avoid having to tidy up anything, but that wouldn't have worked well with the cheering up purpose. Besides, Jonathan was prone to having full-blown tantrums and I didn't think I had it in me right then to try to calm him down. So, in the end I let him win.

"I won! Nathan has to clean my room." Jonathan sprinted around the kitchen, almost knocking over mom, who was carrying a half-emptied coffee pan. I ran right after him, making him go round to the other side of the table. Jonathan was smiling and laughing again, so maybe it was worth the extra tidying I needed to do. Just maybe. 

"Take it down a notch, boys." Mom scolded us, securing the coffee pan with her arms like it was the most precious thing in the world. To her it probably was. Then she scolded me, although not too gravely: "Don't wind him up too much before the doctor's appointment."

"And hurry up or else you'll be going to school without breakfast." Nicholas threatened me, while pouring more cereals in his bowl. I was having a hard time figuring out where all that food could possibly go. 

"Just sit down, I'll make you one." Mom sat me down and started making a PB&J sandwich for me. She was probably feeling bad about yesterday and was trying to make it up to me, so I just smiled at her gratefully.

°°°°

We didn't have to take Jonathan to school, because Jeffrey was taking him to that doctor's appointment before work. It was supposed to be a regular check-up, but as I had learned a while ago: you couldn't always trust what your parents told you.

The check-ups were nothing new. It was all part of following up Jonathan's health and understanding the challenges of his condition. Kids with trisomy and mosaicism were at a higher risk to get medical complications such as hypothyroidism, congenital heart defects — and leukemia. So having a close relationship with medical professionals was crucial for him.

I soon found out I couldn't concentrate on any of my classes. I kept worrying about Jonathan, even though everyone told me not to, and it surely didn't help that I could barely keep my eyes open. I was behind in most of my courses, except math which has always been easy for me.

"I-I didn't listen to t-the podcasts.." I wanted to cover my face with my hands and slide down in my chair when we started going through our tasks that were supposed to be done by then. "I f-forgot."

"It's fine, don't sweat about it." Casper told me, having an uncharacteristically sweet expression on his face. 

"Yeah, it's not the end of the world." Solar hurried to say as well and placed his hand on my shoulder.

I tried to work hard to pay back for forgetting to do my task, but as I mentioned earlier, my focus was nonexistent. I tried to read an essay about some art exhibition thing, but I barely managed two sentences before noticing I was just staring at the screen, completely zoned out. I tried to listen to a podcast, but it too was an utter failure.

"How are you?" Solar asked me after the class, walking by my side in the hallway. 

"Are you asking the I'm-fine-thank-you way or do you really want to know?"

"The latter." He smiled at me warmly.

"Not great." I blurted out bluntly, avoiding his gaze. We never got to continue the conversation properly, because that's when Liam, Harper and Audrey Grace found us. Somehow our group, meaning I and Liam, had seemed to grow with two members, and I still wasn't sure what to think about that.

Be as it may, it turned out I wasn't doing such a good job trying to hide my mental state, since even Liam started asking if I was okay. As I've mentioned twice or thrice, that guy isn't good at reading the room, and the changes of other people's moods were often lost to him.

Audrey Grace was worried too, and she cautiously asked me if it had something to do with the way Nicholas had been behaving lately. All I told her, or Liam, was that I was tired.

°°°°

Before my last class of the day, I decided to take a short breather outside the school building. I can't say I was too surprised to find out that that too was going to end up like a disaster. Some days just were like that: they started sucking the moment you opened your eyes and things just kept lining up until something that sucked especially a lot happened. 

The thing that sucked especially a lot that day started with the words: "How could you and your other brother come out retarted when there's nothing wrong with Nicholas? Was your mommy an addict too?" 

It wasn't anything I hadn't heard before.  Our school had a handful of idiots like him, after all. Yet, unfortunately for both of us, the guy picked the worst possible day to pick on me.

"You can say w-whatever you want about m-me or Nicholas, but leave Jonathan out of it." I had never wanted to hit someone like I wanted then. Before I knew it, I was already lunging towards the guy.

I shoved him and, while he was still recovering from his daze, punched him on his nose. He had been mocking me before, and it was clear he hadn't expected me to defend myself. Nicholas would have been proud of me if he had seen how the punch made the guy stagger and nearly fall on his butt. I was also quite certain I had managed to break my hand in the process, but right then I had more acute issues to worry about. 

"What the fuck?" The guy's friend, a short but brawny guy barked, grabbing me by my collar. I realized three things in that very moment: I was outnumbered, I was the scrawniest and I was definitely going to get beaten up. I also noticed I didn't give a fuck, I wasn't even the least bit worried. All I felt was rage. 

When the guy smacked his fist to my lips, I kicked him on his leg. For that I got a hella serious uppercut on the right side of my jaw. It sent me stumbling backwards until I tripped and fell on my butt. My head was spinning when I glanced up to see the two guys nearing me.

"O-okay s-stop." I mumbled, feeling the anger fading away. Without it I was just so very tired, and I didn't want to keep this up anymore. My stomach clenched when my gaze landed on the bloody nose of the guy I had punched. 

What the heck was I thinking? I never got into fights and I never lost my temper, not like this. I guess Nicholas and Jonathan weren't the only ones who were changing. At least they weren't the only ones affected by the changes.