Gen Two- Chapter Sixteen

If you asked me how many times I had sighed in the past ten minutes, I wouldn't be able to give you an accurate answer. All I knew was that the answer was high as well as that I was even beginning to feel a little light-headed from all the expunging of air I was doing. I was absolutely sick of the scenario I was in, for it happened far too often. There I stood at the west entrance of the elementary school. It was a new wing they built about three years ago to deal with the school's seemingly always increasing student total. It would have been nice if they built it an extra three years earlier so my friends and I could have experienced the reduced strain of moving throughout the halls ourselves.

In any case, the halls were certainly empty at the moment. School was out for the day, and all the normal, sane people had departed. The kids who rode buses got on their buses. The kids who got picked up came right outside the find their parent's car in the line-up of the special idling lane built to make the departure process smooth and easy...save for my kids. I was beginning to make friends with the parents waiting in cars who also had children who took their time. I never spoke a word to those parents, but we communicated well enough through eye rolls and shakes of our heads. I was also on the receiving end of sympathetic smiles, because I was almost always the last one waiting. I don't know why I bothered to get in that special lane sometimes. It made more sense to actually park the car like I had done several minutes ago. I would have loved to have gone into the school to find the little brats and drag them out, but this door only opened from the inside except for in the morning when students arrived. I knew as soon as I started to make the trek to the main door that my two would appear.

And, exactly as I thought that, I heard their voices coming down the hallway. They were merry and cheerful, and there was no sense of urgency in them. It pissed me off. Seriously, didn't these two have any consideration towards me at all? I knew the answer in this regard was pretty much no. Cerise and Glade walked out of the doors holding hands talking and giggling about whatever elementary school drama or gossip they were on about. Glade only gave me a quick glance, and Cerise didn't look my way at all! They completely ignored that I stood there with my arms folded, my foot tapping, and my stare unamused. My sisters were seriously about to walk right past me as if I was nothing more than their chauffeur who was meant to barely be seen and not to be heard.

     "A-hem!" I cleared my throat sternly.

That got the two of them to stop walking and talking. They let go of each other's hands, and Cerise looked up at me blankly before a frustrating smile spread across her lips.

     "Hi, Coal!" she greeted me merrily.

     "Hi, Ceri! So nice to see you this day!" I responded mockingly.

     "Are we all set to go?" she asked back tauntingly, knowing exactly why I was mad.

     "I'm set to drive myself home. You two, I think, I might just make walk." I denied with a frown.

     "But mommy will be angry if you do that." Glade mimicked Cerise's slightly smug tone.

     "Well, mommy's on my side in this," I responded likewise, "She told me I could make you walk if I wanted to, but because you're lucky enough to have a nice big brother I have decided to give you one last chance."

Cerise let out one loud, sarcastic laugh. That really got under my skin.

     "I'm not kidding! If you two make me wait out here forever again because you're more interested in goofing off with your friends or running about the halls or doing whatever the hell you're doing when you're wasting my time, then I'm going to take off! You'll have go to Hunter's place or Cattleya's house to see if you can beg a ride from him or her parents." I warned sternly and shortly.

It finally sank into their skulls by those words that I was, indeed, quite angry, and their proud expressions faded away. That led to a common predicament. God, those two could seriously switch from being all teasing and smiley to looking as if I was about to lock them up in a dark room for a year at the flip of the switch. There was definitely some pulling at the heartstrings going on with that kind of sad stare, and I hated to admit that it generally worked. I felt guilty being harsh despite knowing I was within my right to be upset and say what I had said. Cerise was an expert at manipulating me as well. Glade just did it naturally.

     "We're sorry, Coal. Glade and I were just showing that new girl in my class around some more.  She's been having trouble since she's kinda shy, so when we were able to get her having fun with some of my classmates in the cafeteria I didn't just want to take off and leave her by herself." Cerise explained with a perfect tilt of her head, bat of her eyes, and puppy dog pout.

     "Yeah! She was laughing so hard she almost started crying." Glade added innocently with enthusiasm.

I put my fists on my hips as I studied them. It was easy enough to recognize there was truth in their story, a tale which was meant to tug at my sympathies. Still, I wasn't going to cave entirely so easily.

     "Be that as it may, I'm sticking by what I said. No more of this. Unless you have an actual, legitimate reason to be held up after class, you come out here. If you want to stay after so badly, come out and I'll at least give you my bus pass. Otherwise, I will take off and leave you behind." I emphasized the warning.

     "Okay." Cerise and Glade simultaneously accepted with a pout.

Several seconds was all the time Cerise would allow herself to feel the required guilt she should feel from the situation. Like I said, Cerise knew how to read me well. She knew when not to push me in addition to knowing when she could take control of the situation again. My plan to make her and Glade my little sidekicks against our older siblings had basically failed. I now had two sides from which to fend off sibling taunts. I was essentially the middle child since Prism and Desire were a pair, which left Wisp, Prism, and Desire to lovingly bully me since they were older and Cerise and Glade to become a duo who could take advantage of me because they were younger.

     "Why are you in such a rush anyway?" Cerise wondered, her voice perking up and taking on that teasing tone again, "It's not like you have anywhere you have to be. You don't even have a girlfriend to spend time with."

     "Forget a girlfriend, he doesn't even have a date for homecoming." Glade giggled, following Cerise's lead.

     "They only just announced when it'll be, and who says I want a date anyway? I had plenty of fun going stag with Midas and Azure last year." I said, folding my arms again.

     "Spoken like someone who's admitted defeat because he doesn't know how to pick girls up." Cerise kept right at it, looking back at Glade who giggled harder.

     "Oh, yeah?" I said with a raised brow.

Cerise knew that phrase meant danger. She moved to escape, but I was at least much faster and stronger than her. She wasn't able to take two steps before I snatched her up and tossed her over my shoulders.

     "How's that for picking up a girl?" I asked victoriously.

     "Ugh! You're so lame." Cerise scoffed.

     "Carry me! Carry me!" Glade requested eagerly.

She tugged on the back of my shirt to be led along that way as I began moving us forward. I would have much rather carried her given that she was the lighter and smaller option, but Cerise would dash off and force me to give chase if I didn't put her down next to the car. I seriously just wanted to get home already.

The house hadn't changed much over the years. Everything was where it always had been. Not even the pool table had been moved despite mom hating it being where it was. I was glad nothing had been tampered with too greatly. Memories were all I had left of certain things, and the house never changing helped me to remember.

     "Let's play Small Giant World!" Cerise suggested energetically to Glade the second they rushed through the door.

     "Homework first." I instructed as I hung my keys up.

     "Why?" Cerise questioned defiantly.

     "Because mom said so."

     "Bake us cookies then!" Glade requested, pulling on my wrist to lead me to the kitchen.

     "C'mon, I'm barely in the mood to keep your secret that you made me wait again from mom. Don't push it." I was forced to warn once more.

So, yeah, the house hadn't changed. It was the people inside that had.

That mostly came from the fact that about half of those who had lived here didn't live here anymore. Well, they didn't live here for the most part. Wisp, Prism, and Desire I now saw more by their pictures on the walls than I did seeing them in person.

Wisp was the one who had moved out entirely. A good twenty-four-years-old now, he had finished college and was working as a free lance artist. He had tried to work for various companies, but he had found in the end that he liked being his own boss the best. Wisp had such vast quantities of requests for his work coming in that he could pick only the ones he wanted to do. It made me rather jealous. A lot of his popularity did stem from the fact that he has been rather well known since birth. If you searched his name in an internet engine, after getting his art site as the first link the pages after that would be all the press articles written about him and paparazzi photos taken of him when he was little. It astounded me to recall that at one point he had been as famous as any celebrity's child.

Adding on to that, I had scrolled enough through those sites once to find that Wisp even had a few fan websites where girls squealed over him. The majority had died a long time ago given that they only had a few random photos that had somehow been swiped from what he shared on social media to survive on, although several had a brief flare up from a few lingering lurkers who got their hearts broken. Wisp had gotten married. Her name was Papaya, and they had been dating since the end of their sophomore year of college. Wisp had proposed about ten months ago, and the two had been fully married for six months now. Mom bawled so excessively during the entire duration of the engagement you'd think she was pregnant again. I think it was hard for her to accept her eldest was old enough to actually get married when her youngest had only just started elementary school.

In regards to my first sister-in-law, everyone liked her. She was super smart and witty as hell. Papaya and Uncle Blaze got along as if they had known each other all their lives. Sometimes Papaya's jokes could fall incredibly flat though, and that was when she tried to mix her intelligence in. She would tell these super complicated puns and stuff that usually only mom had the intellectual ability to get. The rest of us would simply stand there staring in confusion desperately trying to figure out what the words she said even meant.

Wisp and Papaya had snatched up Aunt Sunset's old family home across from where Uncle Eden and Aunt Deny lived, so it was nice that they weren't far away. Prism, however, was on the other side of the country. No one was shocked when he decided for college that he wanted to leap into the film industry. It was a good thing mom and dad had named him after Grandpa Quartz, for Prism was his spiritual successor. That was what the press was calling him anyway. Of course Prism moving down to Tinseltown to live with Aunt Sunset and attending classes to be a director would draw a lot of attention to himself. He was white, for one, in addition to being named after a, now unfortunately deceased, super star actor as well as being a son of the famous Ethereal. Prism was lapping up the attention and loving every moment of it. He had already gotten an offer from a studio for him to help them with a short film they were doing. From what I was hearing and from what I heard from Prism himself, he was proving he did have the talent to back up his hype.

Desire, on the other hand, was living the much more typical college life. She had chosen to go to Twilight University for a psychology degree, which had made Uncle Eden incredibly happy. He had never gotten the chance to go after his original career of being a psychology professor, but he seemed content enough passing on his knowledge to his niece. Desire was living in one of the nice suites with Plum and two other girls they had made friends with there. She came home about once a month or occasionally twice if there was a long weekend.

While there were a bunch of new pictures detailing the changes everyone had gone through, there were several photos I knew would never be touched. Those were mostly the ones with dad in them, and especially the two in the dining area. The almost complete family portrait was as sweet as it was bitter to look at, and Cerise threw a tantrum the few times someone suggested switching out the shot of dad teaching her to walk. Like I suspected, there was little she could remember of him on her own. Pictures like the one behind her and videos shaped the majority of her memories. The best we had been able to do for Glade was show her all the old photos of mom and dad when they were kids and mom was green. With mother and daughter looking nearly identical exactly like Uncle Eden said when Glade was born, it was easy enough for her to pretend it was her and dad together in those photos instead.

     "Wait? What?"

Cerise frowned up at me in extreme confusion when I slid a plate holding the perfect, crisp, golden brown grilled cheese sandwich I had been making Glade's way.

     "I thought you were making that for you!" she complained, staring longingly as my youngest sister accepted the treat by shoving a third of it into her mouth.
     "Nope. She started her homework like I asked, so I'm rewarding her for it. You'll just have to deal with the last dregs of the ice cream." I explained with a smirking grin.

Cerise had demanded to have a snack and goof off first. She stole the almost empty carton of ice cream from the fridge before I could stop her, but Glade had diligently pulled out one of her notebooks to begin working. That was when I had begun making the sandwich, and I think Cerise learned the little lesson I was trying to teach when her pout deepened immensely after Glade pushed her plate far away from her reach when Cerise tried to steal a bite.

I promised to maker her one too if she started her homework as well, which she did accept. Cerise and Glade were halfway done when mom returned from grocery shopping, and I was finally able to take my leave. I hopped in the old family car again to make my way to the good old Yonder household. I nearly burst out laughing when I saw all five of them situated in the kitchen having a discussion. There could only be one thing they were talking about.

     "Baby mama trouble?" I asked mischievously as I walked in.

Rosemary greeted me with a laugh and big smile, and all except Hunter gave their own friendly greeting motions as well. Hunter, though, he glared at me.

     "No!" he exclaimed in annoyance, "There's no baby mama drama because there's no baby mama! The test proved weeks ago that the kid's not going to be mine, so I don't get why everyone is still going on as if it is!"

Malachite chuckled.

     "It's because this kind of situation is something someone like me should have caused, but because it happened to the rational Hunter it's just that much more intriguing." he teased.
     "But I was rational! That's exactly why the kid's not mine! I took precautions unlike whatever idiot did get her pregnant! It's not like I knew she was seriously going around to a different guy every night," Hunter huffed in exasperation, "Besides, just you wait. Don't even try to deny that you haven't brought some of your clients home with you, because everyone knows that you have."
     "Two," Malachite admitted smoothly and without hesitation, "And I've been as 'rational' with them as you have. You can say I'm just doing my job as well. It is my duty to make sure they get plenty of physical exercise ."

I laughed while Rosemary giggled like a maniac. Uncle Eden and Aunt Deny shook their heads and sighed, but I saw them holding back smiles. Against all odds, Hunter and Malachite had a really good brotherly relationship now. So much so that after graduation from college they bought an apartment together in the city. Malachite worked as a personal trainer at the gym while Hunter worked at a night club. It was all thanks to Malachite sticking to his promise of getting rid of his bad habits and behaviors. He was still a major pain in the ass, make no mistake about that, but it was the acceptable kind of obnoxious where he just teased you a lot and played minor pranks.

Hunter opened his mouth to say something, but he was silenced when Aunt Deny slipped in her words before he could get his out.

     "We just want to impress on the both of you the seriousness of this kind of situation." she said with a hint on rebuke.
     "Exactly. I don't want have to deal with any more phone calls from piece-of-work dads like what that girl's one is. I know we can't stop you from doing what you'll do, but you need to be careful." Uncle Eden added on.
     "I was!" Hunter professed for the hundredth time.

I began to feel bad for him, especially because I knew the girl had only tried so hard to get everyone to believe he was the father because he was the one who came from the richest family out of all the guys she slept with.

     "And anyways, aren't you being hypocritical?" he continued, "You and mom had me on accident. You are an accident! Al is an accident. Mary is an accident. Who the hell knows with this one!"

Hunter motioned towards Malachite, who could only shrug and smile a silly smile.

     "It's not like if the kid was mine that I'd be doing something new within this family." he concluded, folding his arms.

I could tell Uncle Eden was prepped to say more, so I motioned for Rosemary to come with me. I did actually have plans, unlike what Cerise and Glade thought. Rosemary and I did have to leave, and the current conversation that never seemed like it would end would keep us trapped if we didn't just bolt.

Our plans weren't anything special. Rosemary and I were simply meeting up with the other four to hang out for the afternoon. They were already at the activity center and goofing off without us thanks to the delays with my sisters and picking up Rosemary. I knew where Midas and Azure would be before as soon as I realized everyone was up on the second floor. In order to encourage customers to pay for more arcade passes, a prize was being offered to those who could beat the high scores on certain machines. Midas and Azure were going to try all of them, but so far they had been focused on battling it out with each other on the space shooter game. They were at it almost everyday fighting for the prize.

     "I swear your ships keep glitching through my shots! That one laser I sent went right through your left side without doing anything!"

I heard Midas complaining even before Rosemary and I could walk through the arcade section's doors.

There was furious clicking sounds from Azure's half of the table, and his expression determinedly concentrated on what he was doing only relaxed and grew amused after he successfully deflected Midas' new wave of attacks.

     "No, you just suck," Azure taunted, "We've switched sides so many times, so you can't keep claiming I've got the advantage of a rigged set of controls."
     "He's just desperate. He complained the other day when he played with me of the sun bothering him before realizing there's no windows in this room!" Rosemary joined in in the teasing.
     "Shush!"

That was all Midas could retort with.

Even if he could barter for his argument more, he would have been cut off anyway. Holly and Mimosa were naturally in the room too, and I'm sure you can guess which one ran over to barrel herself into me and cut off my circulation with a tight hug. I didn't bother trying to rebuke her for greeting me in such a mildly painful way. If Mimosa hadn't listened to me about it in the approximately past seventeen years, she wasn't going to listen to me now. Used to it however, I let her hug me. And hug me. And hug me. She kept me glued in her grip for way longer than normal, and she moved with me when I tried to step away.

     "Something wrong?" I asked.
     "I've just missed you." she mumbled into my shoulder, clutching on even tighter.
     "Mimosa..." I tried not to sigh with too much annoyance, "You went one day without seeing me. It's not the end of the world."

She responded with a childish whine and still tighter grip.

     "A little help?" I glanced Holly's way, who stood there amusedly watching.
     "You're a big boy now. You can rescue yourself."

The two of us had a staring content. Holly merely smirked while I glared at her dryly. She knew Mimosa would never let me go without help from an outside force, and Rosemary, who had wandered off to snag a game for herself, was in no mood to help either.

     "Fine, fine." Holly scoffed, thankfully, not too much later.

At that, Mimosa jumped off me. This situation occurring many times taught her Holly would yank her of by the back of her collar if she didn't let go herself. She still held my hand though, so I remedied the problem the only way I knew how.

     "Let's play table tennis together." I suggested.

At the prospect of doing something solely with me, Mimosa perked up and released me from her grasp. We left the room to snag some paddles and balls. My annoyance evaporated like it typically did with her once we began to interact normally. Although, I can't say my irritation completely went away. I was just bothered in a different manner. With the kind of attitude Mimosa had, you had this impression that she wouldn't be good at a lot of things. The truth was though that she could then go on to kick your butt so hard so fast that you would have no idea what happened. I knew she was excellent at table tennis so that didn't happen to me exactly, but I certainly had a difficult time not being completely decimated. The one thing I had taught Mimosa over the years was that she didn't have to let me win. She wasn't afraid to rub it in my face either.

     "Would you like me to help you practice?" she asked in such a superior teasing manner after I lost the second game that I had to laugh.
     "Please, teach me your ways." I played along.

Our shots were slower, and we hit for fun after that. We were able to talk while we did as well.

     "A fairy? Really?" I asked disbelievingly at what Mimosa told me.
     "Uh-huh! I know it sound silly, but I did meet one the other day!" she professed, mistaking my suspicion for genuine interest, "He wasn't this little, tiny thing either! He looked just like a normal man walking around, but I could tell there was something different about him. That's why I went over to talk to him. Apparently, he can hide his wings at will. He showed them to me because he knew I would believe him."
     "I don't know if you should be going up to random men you meet in the city and start talking to them." I said.
     "Is that all you have to say about it?" Mimosa pouted, "Don't you want to meet the fairy?"
     "Maybe?" I shrugged indifferently.
     "I'll set up a meeting for us with him! I'm sure you'll be more excited about this too then!" she planned eagerly.
     "Sure..."

I scratched the back of my head, not quite certain about that.

When Azure has resoundly beat Midas too many times, Midas rushed over to grab me because I was more on his level. We circled around the arcade going through all the games. I almost beat the high level on one of the prize winning machines by pure luck, but Holly telling Rosemary a surprisingly raunchy joke on the other side of the room had me laughing too hard along with them. With that loss killing my enthusiasm, we decided to finish our time at the arcade with one of our traditions. A skeeball competition. The six of us took up nearly the whole row of machines. I felt as if I did rather well, but of course I wasn't going to win there either. I tied with Rosemary for second place while Midas and Azure tied for first place.

It continued to be the standard afternoon for us following that. We moved downstairs to do some rollerskating before leaving the activity center entirely to go wherever we felt like going. The late summer heat was getting a bit crippling, so we saw some random movie at the theater, checked out new products at a candy store Holly loved, and stopped at the comic shop for Midas' sake before heading to one of the cafes for a snack. Azure caused a ruckus for my friends by purposely holding up the line. I was the lucky one who got my item of choice first, so I just watched and laughed and munched on my brownie as he caused headaches for everyone else.

Then it was time to drop Rosemary off before heading home. I helped mom cook dinner, and I gorged myself on it as I seriously could never feel full anymore. I had expected mom to get on my case about me devouring groceries as soon as she bought them. However, she said after cooking for dad, Uncle Eden, Uncle Blaze, Wisp, and Prism for so long that she understood a male's appetite, especially one who was growing like me. The time following dinner was family time. Cerise and Glade were on me like normal. Cerise in particular was a fighting animal. She loved to roughhouse. I actually feared her getting older as her punches already gave me hints of bruises. With Uncle Blaze getting a little old to keep them entertained, it fell on me to play wrestle with them and go along with whatever other games they concocted.

Things settled down a few hours later. Cerise was puttering about in her room, mom and Uncle Blaze were doing whatever they were doing, and Glade, all ready for bed, insisted I read her a bedtime story. It was a common request, and it definitely wasn't one I minded. Glade could be easily riled up and made feisty by Cerise's influence, but on her own she was nothing more than a cuddly sweetheart. She got herself comfortably situated on my leg as we continued one of her new favorite books. It was mostly a typical romance, but it was funny enough for me to be able to bear it. What was a problem for me though- Glade's weight on my leg. At the end of the chapter I read, I simply couldn't take the fierce tingling in my muscle that signaled it falling deep asleep.

    "Glade?" I started to let her know we needed to change positions.

However, my leg wasn't the only thing that had fallen asleep. My sister had completely conked out without me realizing. Great. Now I was going to have to read half of that chapter again. I couldn't be mad though. There was no real reason for me to be, and Glade was a hard one to get mad at. Her pouting face surpassed Cerise's with ease. I also hadn't grown out of my fondness of watching her sleep. It wasn't difficult to recall those early days after her birth where just having her alive felt like a relief and blessing.

I know mom felt that way too, because she spoiled the hell out of her. Just her room was proof of that! I guess I was lying a smidge earlier when I said the house hadn't changed. Mom had actually kicked Uncle Blaze out of the spare room and into Wisp's old room so Glade could have the much bigger one to herself. Meanwhile, I was stuck in my small room while Cerise also had the other large room she used to share with Desire to herself now, but I digress. Glade's room was fit for a princess. She even had her own double bed! Not that she used it much. Glade almost never slept alone. If she couldn't convince Uncle Blaze or me to stay with her for the night, she would head right down to mom's room. It couldn't be denied that mom was lonely with dad's absence and us kids steadily growing up and leaving, so she never turned Glade away. That night was going to be one of those typical nights.

     "Stay," she requested sleepily when I had no choice but to wake her up so I could move, "Please?"
     "Sorry, kid. I still have stuff to do. Homework and that sort." I denied, ruffling her hair gently.
     "Hmmm..." she complained in a quiet whine, but she was far too tired to protest.

Part of me did wonder if I should join her later on. That big bed was super comfortable and much more supportive of my long legs, after all. I figured I would contemplate the idea later on if Glade didn't end up joining mom for whatever reason. I did have homework to do, but I booted up a racing video game instead. Alone time was what I needed after being surrounded by people all day. It wasn't something I actually sought out all that often. The past several weeks had been bittersweet though. My junior year of high school had started, I had turned seventeen, and a school assignment had us having to pull up feasible routes for our futures. Getting older and having more freedoms was nice, but a heavy pressure in my chest grew greater with every birthday that passed. It hit me strongly then, and as the sky turned truly dark and the stars came I out I abandoned my game.

I shuffled my way outside to end up in the backyard. The crickets sang their lullaby, the wind brushing through the leaves rolled a soft melody, and the quiet lapping of the pool water pulled the atmosphere together. I sat on the steps and simply stared. The ability to throw away the pressure making my breaths heavy was never going to come, and I was unsure how much being outside would help me. Cerise and Glade used all the playground equipment we had, but compared to how much they used to be used my sisters might as well have been ignoring it. Times were changing, and memories were fading. I suppose you could narrow my problem down to being stricken with pained nostalgia. There was still something very wrong in my life, and having so much time pass from how things used to be to how they were now made me want to stop time forever. I didn't want to grow up having such an important thing missing.

Inevitably, my gaze turned upwards to be captivated by the twinkling stars in the sky. I couldn't tell you how many shooting ones I had wished on in the past six years. None of them ever worked. As I'm sure you can guess, dad had not returned. The situation was the same as it had always been. Dead or alive. We truly didn't know. Not one peep had ever been made. The case had gone completely cold, and it had been declared as such. Even Officer Noble wasn't actively working on it anymore. He kept his eyes and ears open, yet there was nothing for him to follow. Our answers went unfulfilled, and that was an immensely agonizing thing indeed. No one even really spoke of dad any longer unless Cerise or Glade asked a question. No one mentioned him on his birthday or around the holidays as the only usual result was mom crying.

The sound of one of the glass doors sliding open and then closed jolted me slightly. However, the intrusion wasn't unwelcome. I knew who it would be, and I was glad for the interruption from my thoughts. It stopped them from spiraling too far downwards.

     "One of those nights, huh?" Uncle Blaze asked kindly as he made his way over.
     "Yeah." I said slowly.

Uncle Blaze sat down nearby to join me, but it was difficult to listen to him struggle. I wanted to believe that he was a permanent fixture in my life, but he was sixty now. Not super old, yet, unfortunately, things he used to be able to do with no problems were becoming an ever increasing challenge for him. He fought back against all the challenges like one would expect stubborn Uncle Blaze to do. I just wish I could ignore the exhausted strain hidden in his eyes that signaled he would have to start giving in before too long.

     "You alright?" he questioned, ruffling my hair, after a period of comfortable silence.
     "Yeah," I repeated, more encouragingly this time, "Just...reminiscing. Watching for another shooting star to give me yet another little burst of hope. The bit I got from the last one has almost run out."
     "Same here, kid. Same here." Uncle Blaze agreed with a hint of sad exhale.

There the two of us sat for quite a while. Uncle Blaze and I talked every now and again, but for the most part that slightly somber quiet was our companion. It was enough just for the two of us to be near each other to find support from our shared emotions and desires. Although, I struggled with some guilt as Uncle Blaze's presence made me feel better for one specific reason. To not have my father in my life anymore hurt, but I knew the hurt my uncle felt was a thousand times worse. As he had put it himself, dad essentially was his son. To have to constantly live with the fear that he very well could be dead, it terrified me that much more. I was obviously not even a dad yet myself and had no desire to be for while longer still, but I had already promised myself to do everything I could to avoid the particular kind of pain I had to watch the man next to me endure.

Thus, I was grateful again when the door opened and closed a second time. It was mom's turn to make an appearance.

     "Everything alright out here?" she asked with the same kind of tone Uncle Blaze had.
     "Yup. We're good," he flashed her a grin, "Just enjoying the quiet night together."
     "Right," mom laughed ever so lightly, clearly knowing what the atmosphere had really been but letting it slide, "I do hate to interrupt, but Ceri is insisting you watch the last bit of that martial arts movie with her before it becomes her bedtime, Blaze."
     "No problem there. That ending is fantastic."

He jumped up as much as he could. I followed suit- only because I knew mom was about to catch me. The night sky still called to me, but I needed to get to my room to hide. Frustratingly, my efforts went unrewarded. Mom held out her hand to stop me, and I received a studious stare from her.

     "How's your homework coming?" she wondered suspiciously.
     "It's Friday," I sighed massively like I had done earlier in the day, "I have all weekend to do it."

Mom grinned at me with one of those amused, exasperated, disapproving grins that mother seemed so good at producing. I matched that smile with a big, hopeful one of my own with the deluded belief it would help me.

     "All weekend, huh?" she said, folding her arms and tapping her finger, "Just like you had all of last weekend for your homework then too, right? I recall that I allowed you to put it off, you waited until practically midnight on Sunday to start it, and you made you and your siblings late to school because you overslept."
     "So, clearly I learned my lesson? I won't do the same thing again?" I pitifully attempted to barter.
     "Funny," mom giggled a fake giggle before switching to staring at me with a dead serious look that was almost a glare, "Get the math assignment done tonight at least."
     "Right." I caved immediately with a pout.

My slumped, defeated walk towards the door appeared to amuse her. She laughed and caught up to me to wrap her arm around my shoulder and give me a kiss on the cheek. We chatted back and forth as we walked inside. As my mood brightened up, once more, like I always did, the pained pressure and sense of loss was locked away for the night for when I was ready to face it once more like I would have to face it for the rest of my days.