She's Got Moxie In Her

Oh How Things Have Changed

Their jaws dropped.

Robin and Amy stared bug-eyed at me. Auntie smoked her pipe and giggled to herself. Zoey, who had grown before my eyes, raised her eyebrows until she felt so uncomfortable that she looked away and laid on the couch.

"Seriously?!" A smile crept onto Amy's mouth, she was the happiest one in the group.

"You don't seem happy, Ms.Red Bull," Robin flipped her hair and smiled.

Auntie looked at me through her hair, "Who would have guessed,"

And Zoey had the most relatable reaction of them all, "Are we supposed to be happy for you?" It made me laugh.

We sat in the living room of my house, curtains drawn slightly over the windows, carpet twirling between our toes. My home since leaving that nearly vacant apartment became such a drastic comparison. I've been here for a little over half a decade and there are countless awards sprawled against the walls. A modern cottage in comfort, the small 6 room one-story horizontal house kept mostly the necessities in each room, except for the final two rooms that Luca and Zoey turned into their personal caves that matched their polar differences. Up until recently, I never realized how much I was used to not being home before I had nothing else to do except... be home.

Slowly, Auntie circled me the way a prowling feline examines their prey, except, she was more so sizing up my growth. Her usually coy smiles became content as she pulled me into a gentle, silent hug. It broke me down on the inside. It was the hug that said "I'm proud of you, I see you. You've come so far. You made it," without ever breathing a word.

The hug that I missed receiving from her sister.

It was the hug that said "She's proud of you, too."

...

I laid against my bed with my head in the clouds, seeing the ceiling as if it held stars. With no TV on or music playing, I could only listen quietly to the background noise going on in Luca and Zoey's rooms. Luca, who was playing some type of rap music, was going along with every beat as if he were the one who produced the song. Zoey, who preferred to listen to lofi, watched a documentary on a nature preserve and the animals they took care of. I closed my eyes.

How time has flown and slowed all within a mere moment.

After a couple of minutes, Luca opened my door with a steadily slow creak. When he poked his head in, he examined my dark, quiet room.

"What are you, a vampire? Sis, you need some hobbies,"

"This is my hobby,"

"So you are a vampire,"

He flopped onto my bed, his entire frame encompassing the bottom of my bed. I have a Queen, but to Luca's body, that didn't matter. When did he become 6'3?

I sighed and sat up, staring down at him. He looked up and smiled so wide at me that I couldn't help but relax myself. He always did that. "Don't be like that big sis, I just came to talk."

I gave in, "I know Luca, my fault. I'm just a little on edge."

Curiously, his head tilted, "

Suddenly, the door opened once more. This time to Zoey, annoyed beyond measure.

"Hey, fuckface," she started, "Turn off the fucking music if you're done listening to it!"

Luca rolled his eyes, "Ever heard of background noise, shithead? Not everyone is an instrumentalist,"

"You're background noise enough, dammit!"

I chuckled. I promise you, this has been them their entire life. It's a twin thing, I suppose.

Zoey noticed me just before she closed the door. Normally, she would leave me to my thoughts, but I guess earlier's conversation softened her compassion a bit. She closed her eyes and walked to the other side of the bed, carefully sitting at it's edge.

There was something about the Moxelle family and comfort— we were fucking ass at it. Luca was about the best of us, and even he preferred not to do it. We preferred to give comfort with our presence instead of words, especially when it came to the three of us. In the silence of it all, I examined my little brother and sister.

My god how they weren't so little anymore.

Luca's hair was so long now that he kept it in braids. Six of them to be exact, reaching all the way to his shoulders in tight cornrows. His frame was muscular and lean, not having too much muscle in any particular place to perfectly balance basketball and boxing, with tattoos of various things from anime references to quotes. On his neck, yes he has a neck tattoo, no I don't approve, was that photo of our family that's burned into our brains forever— our parent's vow renewal. His legs, thin but sturdy, were so long they bent over the bed from where he laid. He was a proper high school senior now, grown before my eyes. He looked over at me with those shining grey pupils and I felt a tear well up in my eye.

Zoey... how she blossomed. The truly independent one who preferred being alone, she raised herself into a proper young boss-woman. She often kept her hair in a ponytail though her kinky coils hid the scrunchie. This time, though, she braided her hair on her own into a single braid that stretched down her back. She wasn't as muscular as her brother and not nearly as tall at 5'8, but she kept herself fit, too. She had to of course, being as though she was training herself to swim to study Marine Biology. It blew me away how much she grew into herself—grunge dress, never stressed, with the accolades to impress. Laying against the edge of the bed, she quietly doodled a Sea Lion into her sketchbook in between homework questions.

Oh, and she's already in community college.