Time to face the music

Taking a deep breath, Nathan began to descend the stairs into the kitchen to face his sister. This was going to be uncomfortable.

Sat at the table, Phoebe made brief eye contact with him before blushing heavily and staring down at her bowl of cereal. Today truly was weird, Nathan thought to himself yet again. The normal response to any of his fuckups was a scowl and a couple barbed comments to be thrown at him. Was she feeling well?

Building up the confidence to say what needed to be said, Nathan clasped his hands together behind his back and stared at the floor.

"Hey uh, so um... about the thing sis... I u-uh, well what I mean t-to say is that I um..." Nathan stumbled over his words trying to find an appropriate response to try and apologize, downplay or shift the blame somehow but the words just wouldn't come. As the seconds seemed to drag on for hours, his embarrassment slowly began to rise along with it. Phoebe was also visibly getting more and more embarrassed, sitting on top of her hands looking at the floor with coloured cheeks. This did not help to make Nathan articulate any better.

In an attempt to save face, Nathan turned on his heel and began to make breakfast.

His mind was going haywire. Many mixed emotions clashed together in a befuddling storm. Embarrassment, disgust at himself, nervousness but above all: frustration. Nathan had never been very good at conveying his thoughts, probably why he only had a handful of friends.

If only he could just make them understand what he really wanted to say. He *wanted* to tell her that he was sorry for walking in on her and that it wouldn't happen again. He *wanted* her to understand that it was an accident.

A sudden shooting sensation traveled up his spine. A strange sensation like someone was peeling away his intention from his brain, leaving a vaccum in its place. He felt the vaccum suddenly fill out, just as the sensation came to an end, the sound of Phoebe dropping her bowl as it shattered on the hardwood floor.

As he turned back around to investigate the sound, he saw the shocked expression on his sisters face, holding her hand up to cover her mouth