Jaina folded her arms. "Ok, mum, who the heck was he?"
"Nobody, sweetie, I'm tired, leave me alone," Mei said. She was attempting to smile and act all nice and casual and tired, but she wasn't succeeding. It was obvious that she wanted her three curious, hormonal and unfortunately sometimes plain irritating teenage kids out of the room right now.
"I'll leave when you tell me who he is," Jaina said stubbornly.
"Oh come on Jaina," whined Brandon, "just drop it. Mum has a right to chase after men if she wants to."
Mei smiled thinly at her daughter. "Is that why you're upset, because you think I might be seeing other men?"
"No," Jaina sighed, "I just need to know, who was he?"
Mei looked away. "Just an old friend, she replied."
Jaina tapped her foot and chewed her lip. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"It was nobody important, somebody I knew when I was a kid, that's all," Mei insisted.
Jaina shook her head. "Why do you always keep things from us?"
"I don't," Mei replied.
"You never tell us anything," moaned Jaina.
"I do," snapped Mei.
"Okay…why don't you two just calm down?" Suggested Brandon.
"Stay out of this," Mei barked. Brandon shrugged and rolled his eyes.
"That is it!" Cried Ryland, "Time out, all three of you!"
Brandon snorted. "Shut up."
"Neither of you are very funny," Jaina growled.
"Jeez Jaina, you're the one who's always so serious. All you care about is football and your dumb boyfriend, who…erm…isn't exactly your boyfriend anymore." Brandon muttered.
"Well," Jaina replied, "All you care about is goofing around and being stupid and idiotic."
"Stop, both of you, or I'll take the two of you off of this team. You're acting like children; grow up, the pair of you!"
"Harsh," Brandon murmured.
Jaina glared at her mother but didn't say anything. Just at that moment, Lucas burst through the door and rushed into the room. He looked shocked and was out of breath.
"Hi Lucas, what is it?" Mei asked politely.
Lucas, who was still breathing heavily, said: "Sorry to interrupt, but you might want to come see Aiden; he's been hurt pretty bad."
Jaina stood up, looking alarmed. "What happened to him? How bad is it?"
"It's bad." Lucas hesitated before answering. "We think that he was attacked.