Burning Grace

One Big Happy Family

Lydia

Sunday

     "Lydia," Sarah says as she shakes me awake, "are you going to get up?"

     Sarah, I love you, but if you can't let me sleep, I'm going to have to kill you.

     Groaning, I squeeze my eyes shut to try to stop my dreams from escaping but they were already slipping away. Realizing that it was too late to go back to sleep, I open my eyes a bit and look at the digital clock built into the bottom of the bunk above me and see that it's a quarter to seven. In a frantic rush because I've overslept by over an hour, I start flailing my limbs and end up falling out of my bed and onto the floor in a heap of blankets.

     "You know," Sarah calmly says with an audible smile, "you're pretty clumsy for someone so good at sneaking around."

     We'll see who gets the last laugh...

     I grab one of the pillows that fell to the ground with me and throw it in her direction as a reply. After untangling myself from the blankets, I get up and start making my bed when I suddenly remember that it's Squad Sunday and my turn to pick the group activity. Unable to contain my excitement, I quickly, and slightly sloppily, finish my bed before running into the bathroom to get ready.

     After showering, I find Sarah already putting her hair into a ponytail as her final act of morning preparation. She's always been great about not wanting to slow others down when they have something important happening.

     "So what all did you and Drew do yesterday?" Sarah asks as I finish brushing my teeth, "Aaron and I noticed that the two of you were still missing when we came back to the rooms."

     "Oh yeah," I say with a wide smile, remembering the previous day, "We went into one of the empty classrooms and watched a bunch of kids' movies that Zach downloaded for us. Drew made a big thing out of it with a bunch of pillows and blankets and my favorite snacks."

     "He really would do anything for you," Sarah replies with an understanding smile. "Did you two even pay any attention to the movies or were you focused elsewhere?"

     "We watched the movies," I shoot back while threatening her with my hair dryer, "you know how he loves all those cheesy stories and gets adorably emotional when something sad happens. He started hugging one of the pillows and couldn't take his eyes off the screen whenever it looked like the main character wasn't going to make it."

     God I love that adorable little dork.

     "Definitely sounds like Drew," Sarah manages to say while laughing.

     "So what were you and Aaron up to yesterday?" I ask with a grin, "Drew just said he saw him leave in the morning with a stupid smile and a couple of the big duffel bags."

     "That doofus took me to the firing range," she answers, laughing again at the look on my face as I stop putting my hair up to stare at her. "He wanted me to help him work a bit more on his marksmanship. He's actually getting almost as good as me."

     All the time we spend on the range and Aaron thinks it's a good idea to go there even more for a date?

     "So you two just shot targets the whole day?" I inquire, thinking this a bit unusual for the two of them.

     "No you know he's smarter than that," Sarah replies with a dismissive wave. "He kept making me laugh by doing stupid stuff like shooting smiley faces into the targets and starting little ridiculous competitions with me. After a while he took me up into the observer's room where he'd set up a nice picnic for us with stuff from those bags Drew saw him carrying."