The Sensorians: Awakening

slept badly when exams were looming at school.
I dragged myself out of bed, put on a dry t-shirt and glanced at the clock on my phone which read 6:45.
“Shit."  I muttered.
There was no point going back to bed so I had a shower.  I grabbed my towel and sauntered to the bathroom.  I wished my head wasn't so foggy in the morning.  My vision so blurry, I could hardly see where I was going.  Those damned meds, I thought grumpily, full well knowing that without them I would not be living at home with my mum but instead in some mental institution, or worse....
Our bathroom was small and functional but mum had used some colourful tiles to brighten the place up.  It had worked.  Sort of.  I loved having a shower or bath in there, listening to music whilst getting ready, to the great annoyance of my mum as it would usually take me forever to finish, making the room so steamy you could hardly breathe.
A vague memory of when I was little crept into my head.  I used to feel elated coming in here.  The pinks, yellows and greens of the tiles evoked such intense happiness I told my mum once that it felt like they were singing to me.  In fact everything around me I would absorb like a sponge.  I used to feel the colours and sounds around me and they would engulf me with such a mixture of emotions that I could hardly make sense of them.  I would look at someone's smile and it would make me burn inside with happiness.  An angry glance would make me crumble inside and I would sometimes cry out in pain.  More often than not, especially when outside of the house, I felt so overwhelmed with all the stimuli around me that I would crawl up in a ball and hide or scream, to the despair of my mum who just didn't understand.
The sounds too had changed.  Voices everywhere, and loud, used to be all around me.  I could remember the shower sounding like a downpour, footsteps as billowing as a drum and my mum's reassuring breaths like she was right next to me, wherever she was in the house.  I could always work out where she was when I tuned into her.  I knew the sounds of her like the back of my hand.  It had made me feel safe.  But what I missed the most was all the smells around me.  I remembered every season had their own distinctive scent.  Spring had been my absolute favourite.  More bizarrely, I was always able to work out exactly what mood people were in by just a whiff of their scent.  It used to reassure me.
I could feel my mouth turn into a sad smile.  Confusing as they sometimes were, I really missed those intense feelings, but I could always tell they had frightened my mum.
I heard  my phone ping in the distance.  Probably Kasper.  He always got up early to try and catch a wave before going to school.  He, so far, had failed to convince me to come on these early outings but I loved watching him in the afternoon.  He was the typical surfer dude, with long blond hair which he, more often than not, wore in a messy man bun.  He had the most gorgeously warm smile which was always reserved for me.  The thought of him was enough to make me feel more optimistic about the day ahead and I was able to shake off the feeling of unease which the dream left me with.
Pick u up laters babes xxx -
I quickly towel dried my hair as I usually let it dry naturally with a bit of texturising wax rubbed in to get that slightly tasselled bob look.  I threw on some reasonably smart clothes for school.  In Sixth Form we didn't have to wear a uniform, but we had to look presentable as if we would be going to work in an office.  I never seemed to pull off that smart casual look very well somehow.
I heard some clanking noises in the kitchen which was mum getting a coffee ready to start the day.  She recently started working in a  solicitor's office in town and she loved it.  She used to do all sorts of odd jobs, just to earn some extra money, but her main focus had always been me.  Her new job had given her some new opportunities to develop her career into something more long term and rewarding, and she was thriving on it.  I never knew for sure how she was able to support us, but even though we weren't rolling in it, we never seemed to be short of money either.  She always avoided the subject, but I managed to extrapolate that my father had made promises to her when he left, albeit in a letter.  I gave up asking as it upset her, though she always tried her hardest not to show it.  I understood as, little as I was, the pain I felt when I realised that my daddy had gone was as if he was physically ripped out of my body.  It had left a gaping hole, never to be completely filled again.
“Have you had breakfast Eliza? I think we are a bit low on milk so can you get some on your way back from school today?"  she asked in a hurried voice.
“In a minute.  Might wait for Kas, as he might want some too"  I added quickly.
Mum liked Kasper, but was not too keen on the amount of time I spent with him.  I should concentrate on my studies, she constantly reminded me.  I got some cereal out the cupboard and watered down the tiny amount of milk that was left.
Kasper did join me for some breakfast, wolfing down some toast.  He would never say no to the offer of food.
We walked to school and Kasper was in a buoyant mood, unlike myself.
“Looking forward