Just be there

Izzie

"What are you plotting, you rat?" I say to Casey with narrowing eyes, but despite my best efforts a grin is spreading across my face. "Nothing!" Casey says, feigning offense as she widens her eyes and presses her hand to her chest dramatically.

I roll my eyes at my dork of a girlfriend. She's scheming something, I can tell. However, if it was something bad she would be a lot more guilty. I know my girl. So shrug and let it go for now.

I return my attention to my AP Spanish Literature and Culture homework. Why I signed up for this class is still beyond me. I do well with languages in general, but this class is so technical. I hate having to write essays in Spanish. I do fine speaking, but lose a ton of points for things like accents on essays. I look up another word to double check to see if I need an accent or not, before continuing my essay. This is going to take the next several hours before we leave to pick up my siblings to give my grandma the evening off. I sigh dramatically, cursing my past self who signed up for this shit.

Behind me, I can still hear Casey texting somebody rapidly. I wonder what she is up too? However, mi ensayo needs the entirety of my attention focused on it, so I push the thought out of my head.

Casey's phone rings, and she walks out of the room and downstairs to take the call. A jealous girlfriend would be suspicious right now. Which I'm making every effort not to be, therefore I shake my head and again return my focus to mi maldito ensayo.
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Casey drives us to my grandmother's apartment three hours later. I spent most of the last three hours working on my essay, much to my annoyance.

As we pull up, Luca is standing outside holding Charlie's car seat, per usual. He normally meets us outside with the car seat so I can install it before we go up to get the girls.

Casey goes up to grab the girls while I install the car seat this time, in the name of efficiency I suppose.

Casey comes back down carrying Charlie, who looks adorable in a soft pink dress with a white sweater over it. Now that I think about, all my siblings are dressed nicer than usual. Especially considering we are taking them to the park before dinner.

I shrug. It's whatever, but Charlie's clothes will likely be very dirty by the time we are done at the park.

Casey straps Charlie into her seat, and I try not to be too obvious as I peek over her shoulder to make sure she's doing it right. I nod approvingly as I see her sliding the chest clip up to it's proper position on Charlie's chest. She's getting much better at that. I smile to myself.

Gabi slides into the middle seat on the other side of Charlie, and Luca sits next to her. I get back into the passenger seat as Casey drives us to the park.

We park, and start walking towards a grassy area of the park where we like to let Charlie run around to her heart's content.

As we approach I notice that someone has set up a blanket with flowers. Looking closer I realize the flowers are my favorite, yellow roses. Huh.

I turn around to look at Casey curiously, and blink at what I see when I turn.

I see all of my siblings holding up signs, standing side by side. Charlie is literally jumping up and down, but I read the signs. Luca is holding a sign at the far left of the group that says "Will you" next to him is Gabi holding up a sign that says "go to" and next to her is Charlie bouncing holding a sign that says "Prom with ➡️" the arrow pointing to the end, where Casey was standing grinning at me.