Beep! Beep! Beep! The blaring sound of the alarm filled the room. "Ugh, what time is it?" I asked myself, even though the answer was obvious, I'm the one who set it. I lift my head from my pillow, turn off my alarm and check the time. 6:00 a.m. why was I so tired? Well, that didn't matter; I needed to get ready for school. I didn't want Kara on my case; the treadmill would wake me up.

I got out of bed in my tank top and yoga pants slowly walking to our work out room. When I reached the treadmill I steeped on and put it on my usual setting.

After about twenty minutes I was ready to go downstairs and eat breakfast. First I went back to my room, changed into my green orange and white cheerleading uniform and wore my hair down with my grey headband like how I usually wore it. Once I was done getting ready, including my make up (natural except for my usual red lipstick) I went downstairs ready to eat breakfast. But once I got down there I remembered that our dad wasn't up yet. Even if he was, there was no way he would have made us breakfast, he never has. I sighed. "Ok Max, you better thank me for this."

"Ok, what do we need here?" I read the recipe card that I found in one of the cabinets, these were the same ones we had for Christmas last year; I cooked. "Let's see; flower, sugar, baking powder, salt, milk, butter, and an egg." I got all of the ingredients and mixed them in a bowl according to the recipe. I put the mixture in a skillet and waited.

"Here we go." I put the pancakes on a plate just when max came downstairs.

"Mia, what are you doing up?"

"You're up too." I knew what he meant, but I couldn't resist.

"I mean when did you get up?"

"6:00, why do you care?"

"Well you didn't have to make pancakes. You could've slept in."

"Yeah, but I didn't. Come and get some." We both smiled.

While we ate our pancakes I realized that these moments between us were rarer then I wanted them to be. At school, even though we were basically in the same clique, (jocks and cheerleaders) we were… different. We were both popular but it was a different kind of popular. Max was the quarterback, everyone loved him, guys wanted to be him, girls wanted to be with him. Me on the other hand, I was popular, except with the cheerleaders. All of the other girls would bend over backwards for me, guys wanted to date me (even though I'm not interested in any of them.) But the cheerleaders, especially Kara, hated me. I tried to tell myself it was because they were jealous of me, but I knew that wasn't it. It was like how dad preferred Max over me. Max was his football star; I was the cheerleader that cheered him and the other guys on. He approved the girls that Max liked; but, well… he didn't approve of anyone that I liked, and it wasn't just because I was his little girl. But I don't want to get into that right now. I don't know the exact reason Kara and all the other cheerleaders hate me, I don't know why they sometimes act like they don't, but what I do know that they don't like me. That's ok though, because I have the approval of everyone else at school. That's all I'll ever need. Until collage, but I don't have to worry about that for two more years.

"Hey, you ready to go?" Max asked me.

"Huh?"

"To go to school, come on, I'll drive you."

"You will?"

"Don't act so surprised, I can be a good brother when I want to."

"I wish you'd want to more often." I mumbled to myself, but he still heard me.

"Don't be that way Mia."

"Ok fine, I'll get in your stupid car." I teased. "But if you abandon me…" I said, a slight edge to my voice.

"Mia, I'm not going to abandon you." He assured me, already half way out the door. "Now are you coming or not?"

"Ok, I'm coming." I laughed as I grabbed my backpack and went out the door. I didn't know why he was being so nice to me, but I wasn't going to complain.