Victoria Aspen's life just turned inside out.
She has been forced to move into the house she used to spend every summer in. It's been so long since she was welcomed back into the family and this time... they didn't really have a choice.
But thi...
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"Can we see it in a mint green?" Ashley gives the retailer a dashing smile and he complies with a sigh. 'Aaron' sure doesn't enjoy selling furniture.
My stepmother finally found a hole in her schedule to go shopping for my room, and she wants to waste as much of it as she can. She has almost politely enquired to see each item in at least six different shades, even though she knows very well the colour theme I have in mind. As soon as I said teal, she flipped it to the pastel reincarnation – mint.
It actually doesn't bother me all that much, as long as I get a damn closet, which at this rate isn't going to happen.
Aaron returns with the pedestal in aqua, and before Ashley can even voice her doubts, I call, "We'll take it."
She gives me a questioning look and I plaster on a confident, plastic smile. This is so much more painful than I thought it would be.
The sun is setting over the Virginia horizon in cool blues and purples. It looks like the ocean has finally come to visit us for a select few minutes of the day, parading its pigment all over the sky.
Ashley talks incessantly into her earpiece about some papers that she left on her desk and how the bank doesn't give loans on account of bankruptcy and she doesn't have time to make it to the staff party next Saturday.
There is an unending line of shiny, colourful car shaped beads strung along the thin highway. Such nice little accessories to a nice little town, with nice little people going home to their nice little families.
By the time we arrive home, the sun has truly disappeared, and I can barely see the familiar stone paves on the driveway. We step over fifty six stones before reaching the porch. Ashley's heels click as she unlocks the front door and I don't think anyone in the entire universe notices but me.
"The shipment should come in a week," Ashley says to no one in particular. "Hopefully the room will be painted by then?" She glances over her shoulder and I nod numbly. I'm not really listening to what she's saying. All I can focus on is the fact that all of the lights were turned off when we got inside apart from one upstairs, down the hall. Adam's.
Adam is home.
For some reason the thought lifts a part of me that I didn't realise was weighing me down. Sometimes pieces of us turn into lead so slowly that we don't even notice the things rooting us in place.
Ashley says something else and I think I reply yeah, sure. Whatever you think as I make my way to the stairwell. Before I know it, I'm situated in the doorway of my eldest brother's study. Adam is inside, chocolate head inside a textbook.
What am I doing here? He's busy busy busy always busy never time to just say –
"Hello, sister." He smiles weakly at me, looking like he hasn't slept in a while. He doesn't even look annoyed that I interrupted his studying. Sometimes people pray for a distraction and I guess to him I must look like a blessing in disguise.
