Gen Three- Chapter Twenty Six

I'd known it was inevitable, but I still dreaded its happening. Mom and dad were, needless to say, once again incredibly surprised to find me home earlier than normal. I'm sure my face looked a mess after all the crying, and there was no way I could lie to them anymore when I admitted I hadn't come home because I was sick. Dad's eyes narrowed more and more as I told my parents about my outing with Arbor, what we had done, and his actions today. My story had hardly finished before dad dove for his phone. I bet Mr. and Mrs. Thicket regretted giving him their phone number. Still, my curiosity drove me to stick around for the call. Whether to help comfort me or give me a snack for the show, mom permitted me and her free range of our ice cream. Not that I found the stomach to eat much.

     "Yeah, well that's what he said last time!" dad stomped around irately, "How many times has he had to apologize now? We keep giving him the benefit of the doubt, and every other week it's something new he's putting Dianthus through!"

I wished I could hear the other half of the conversation. Dad's protectiveness was reassuring, but not knowing completely what was going on wasn't overly satisfying.

     "If he actually cares about what he did, put him on the phone already! Those words don't mean anything from you!"

There was another pause. Dad at least let whichever one of Arbor's parents on the other end finish their sentences.

     "What nonsense! He's an adult now, right? That's what Dia told us. You hiding him behind your back is probably half the reason why he has the maturity of a five-year-old brat!"

     "Coal." mom rebuked.

He frowned, but got the message.

Color My World Short Story #5

Although I was expecting it at some point that afternoon, the knock on the front door still made my heart skip a bit in surprise. I welcomed the jolt, however. Fridays had become my favorite day for the reason of who would be standing on the other side of the door. It turned out that that Friday I received an extra piece of joy.

     "Charming!" I remarked at my friend's presence with glee when he walked in with Amaranth, "I didn't know you would be coming home this weekend. I thought you were going to be studying for that test retake."

     "I worked hard throughout the week, and I got my professor to let me take it this morning. I passed with flying colors, so I was able to catch a ride down with Am." Allium explained, pulling me into a tight hug before stepping back and beaming widely.

     "That's really good to hear. I'm glad you're holding up well with such a difficult class. I appreciate the hard work as well. What's it been? A month and a half since you've had time to visit?"

     "Something like that. Too damn long." Allium chuckled.

     "That's why he had me bring him along here first as well instead of taking him home. His mom told us you were looking after Hunter right now." Amaranth joined in.

     "Yeah. It's Eden's turn to take Button to the vet while I babysit, and Rose and Jac are off on a date," I explained, "The boys are over in my study area. We just came in from playing outside in the snow."

     "If you'll excuse me then..." Allium said merrily.

Gen Three- Prologue

I learned what true heartbreak was at a very young age.

Three to be specific. Three years and a month to the day to be exact. The day was May 23rd- a Saturday. It had been a fun one for me. Every so often Uncle Eden and I got to spend some time together by ourselves without my sisters or his children or grandchildren around. We'd gone to the festival at the park where we rode on rides, watched a magician on stage, and ate a bunch of tasty food. That was when I asked if we could go to the beach to play on the boardwalk like I often did with my dad, but Uncle Eden said we had to visit the hospital first.

Gen Two- Chapter Thirty One

Those two solemn words mom spoke lingered painfully in the air. Her eyes darted this way and that, but never got higher than the floor. She waited for someone to say something, for someone to react, but I think the rest of us, at least I was, were waiting for her to keep going. To say it was just a joke. To reveal it actually wasn't that serious. When the silence dragged on until it grew suffocating, I looked to dad. There was no doubt by the stunned expression he wore that mom hadn't chosen to speak to him about this beforehand.

     "Lung cancer?"

Wisp was the brave one to break the tension. Even his soft voice boomed like thunder as the horror was that immense.

     "But..but that's something that only people who smoke and stuff get!" Cerise piped up, her words dripped with denial.

     "It's more common for them, but that's not necessarily true," mom countered gently, "All the horrible bouts of pneumonia I've had are what's done it. My lungs have been weakened so much, it was the right environment for the mutations to thrive.

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.

Gen Two- Chapter Thirteen

I had a moment or so to kill, so I snuck across to the other side of the first floor to see how things were progressing with Uncle Blaze and my brothers. I was sure to not let them notice me though, for they otherwise would have made me help them. The only reason I wasn't helping them then was because they thought I was still preoccupied with my previous task.

     "You want us to move it to the front side of the room? But we've always moved it to the back before. There's less heavy lifting and the tree is nice and visible from the street." Prism said in response to Uncle Blaze's unusual decision.

     "Who cares if other people can see our Christmas tree? We always have problems with the sunlight coming in through those front windows on Christmas morning. It ruins the pictures and forces us all to squint the whole time. If we move the piano and drums to the front and put the tree in the back, we won't have to worry about any of that."

     "This thing is so heavy though." Prism complained lightly, pouting at mom's piano.

     "Aren't you the one who's always working out?" Uncle Blaze laughed in disbelief, "What the point in building muscles if you don't put them to good use?"

I was sorely tempted to shout out that Prism only worked out so much just so he could brag, but the taunt wasn't worth getting myself involved in moving the piano that was indeed incredibly heavy.

     "If we're going to move it to the other side, let's pack up mom's planters first. There's no point in having them out now. They'll just get in our way." Wisp suggested.

     "Sounds good." Uncle Blaze agreed.

Gen Two- Chapter Twelve

I couldn't believe it wasn't even lunchtime yet. The morning had dragged on for so long I felt as if the day should already be over. However, the day had dragged on in a good way. The amount of leaves fallen in our yard had grown to a ridiculous amount. Truth be told, dad had always been the one to do the majority of the raking. He hadn't had his own yard to rake growing up, so that apparently translated to him loving to do it as an adult. With him now gone, the task had been left up to the rest of us. That meant it hadn't been getting done. In order to remedy the situation, my mom had made a deal with my friends that she would whip up a massive lunch with everyone's favorite dishes if they came over to help get the leaves into easily disposable piles. We would also be free to watch as much television or play as many video games as we wanted in the afternoon. It was a deal quickly agreed upon.

The leaves had long been raked as promised, although a second sweep would have to be done as our playing had scattered some here and there. Mom was still working on lunch, so we had time to kill anyway. The crazy amount of tall piles allowed us to try something we had never tried as a game before. It was boys against girls, and it was an all out fight.

Gen Two- Chapter Ten

I couldn't wipe the grin off my face, but Rosemary was have just as much trouble in that regard. Not that she had any desire to stop smiling though. It was my birthday party, but you would think it was hers given the sheer amount of joy radiating from her. Hesitant around the horses at first, she sat taller as the minutes passed on. I had asked to have my party at the stables to do something different from the normal celebration at the house or at the beach. There had been no deeper reasoning to it, but, as far as Rosemary was concerned, I might as well have already given her her birthday present. She waved to me grandly as she rode by.