As I Am

Chapter Twenty-Four

A/N: I'm going to be eating ice cream after writing this chapter. Well, hashbrowns, then ice cream. Cotton Candy ice cream ;) Enjoy!
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Twenty-Four

          My bedroom looks exactly as I left it and completely different at the same time. Crumpled up tape and bits of ripped photographs litter every inch of the carpeted floor. The walls still contain corners of pictures that hadn’t quite made it off the paint unscathed, while the ones that did still left behind missing paint marks.

            I had already talked to my parents about not sleeping in here for the duration of the short visit, and that Hadley and I could take the couches downstairs in the living room while Evan could have the one in the basement.

            I hear them laughing as I run my fingers across a part of the wall, wondering how this could have been my room for so many years and yet feel like I never really lived here at all. When I think of home, I think of the cottage, with its old furnishings and my lighthouse bedroom. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

            “Bam!”

             I turn around at the sound of my mother’s voice calling from the foyer.

            “You beat us!” Dad calls next.

            “Bam?” Mom yells again. I can already hear the worry seeping thickly into her voice and take the stairs down two at a time. “There you are,” she sighs when she sees me. “Everything okay?” I can tell her eyes are searching mine for something wrong.

            “Everything’s perfect.” I give her a smile and take one of the bags from her hands. “Let’s get everything inside.”

            Hours later, everything is sorted out and my dad has brought back groceries from the supermarket to last us for the duration of our trip. Dinner goes by smoothly, with everyone smiling and laughing and talking while they pass the bowls of food around the table. Despite feeling like a guest in my own house, having fun with my family and my best friends seems completely normal.

            “Whoever does the dishes gets ice cream,” Dad announces, rising from his chair.

            I roll my eyes but smile anyways. “Dad, we’re teenagers. We can’t be bribed with ice cream.”

            Just as my father lifts his plate from the table Hadley is sweeping it out of his hands and spinning around to face me as she walks out of the dining room.

            “I don’t know about you, Bam, but I can be bribed with ice cream any day.”

            As she leaves the room Evan begins to collect the glasses and shrugs at me, shooting me a wink too before following Hadley.

            “Okay,” I say as I brush past my dad with my plate, “maybe I want ice cream too.”

            Just as I’m setting my empty dish on the counter someone grabs my arm. As I spin to face my mom, I realize that we’re the only ones in the kitchen. Hadley and Evan have already gone to collect more from our dinner.

            “Can we talk?” Mom asks, still holding onto my arm. I shrug and move my plate into the sink. “Outside?”

            I follow her through the glass sliding door and onto the large, wooden deck in the backyard. All the flowers in the gardens are growing free, spreading like wildfire throughout the grass with no one to tend to them all summer. It almost looks like a jungle.