Family Upgrade

A Family Upgrade

Ding dong.

Jeremy groaned and dragged himself off the couch to open the door. He figured it was Ms. Hansen and Evan, who were coming to visit. He opened the door and, sure enough, he was greeted with two smiling faces.

"Ms. Hansen! You have a key! You know you don't have to knock right?"

"Sure, but would you have ever gotten up if I hadn't?"

"Touche. Hey Evan, how's it going?" He asked, stepping aside to let them through the door.

He waved a little. "O-oh, you know. It's... going."

"Oh, dude," Jeremy shut the door behind them, "what happened to your arm?"

Evan looked down at his cast. "I-I just... fell? I was... climbing a tree and I just... I fell."

"Darn that sucks. We could be playing some serious Mario Kart right now." Evan managed a weak smile at Jeremy's joke. "Anyway, Dad is in the kitchen, Ms. Hansen.

"Thank you, Jeremy." She ruffled his hair and said with a smile. "Now why don't you and Evan hang out for a while?"

Jeremy laughed. "Well, duh. Come on, Ev." He gestured for Evan to follow as he made his way to his room. He pushed open his door and headed straight for his desk. He dug around in the drawer for a moment until pulling out a Sharpe. "Here, Ev, I'll sign your cast!"

He smiled at his enthusiasm and reached out his arm. Jeremy wrote his name messily, adding a smiley face.

"There! And there's still plenty of room for the people at school!"

"Oh... Great. Thanks."

"Of course!" Jeremy glanced around the room. "So, uh, what d'ya wanna do?"

"I don't know."

Jeremy shrugged and walked to his closet. He opened it and pointed to a shelf. "Since we can't play video games with your arm, how about a board game?"

"S-sure. Which one?"

"You pick!"

"U-um okay. What about Uno?"

"Sure, why not." Jeremy said, pulling the game down. They sat on the floor as Jeremy shuffled and dealed the cards. "So how have things been?"

"They've been... okay... I guess." Evan placed a yellow seven, avoiding Jeremy's eyes.

"You guess? You know you can tell me if something's up, right Ev?" Jeremy reminded him, changing the color to blue.

"Y-yeah I know. I guess... things really haven't been good lately. Mom's been... she's been gone a lot more lately and I haven't talked to anyone, not that that's any different from normal. The only thing I've been doing is that forest ranger thing." He played another number stacked on skip card.

"Well, you know you can always hit me up. I'm never doing anything whenever Michael and I aren't hanging out." He used a draw two.

Evan managed a small smile, glad Jeremy was at least trying, even if he didn't know the whole story. "W-well you're always hanging out with Michael." He said, drawing two new cards.

Jeremy laughed, "Yeah, you got me there. Uno." He put down his second to last card and looked up at Evan expectedly. Evan sighed, using the only card he could, leaving the color unchanged. "Yes!" Jeremy called, throwing down his last card. The two of them laughed and gathered the cards. "Okay but really. I'm always here if you need anything. Anything at all."

"You'll always be Heere. Jeremy Heere." He said, lightly chuckling at his own joke.

"Ha ha, very funny, Hansen. What if I change my name?"

"You won't. You're too lazy."

"Wow, you're right again." They laughed, putting the cards away in the box.

"But, thank you."

"Of course, buddy." He said while putting the cards back on the shelf. "Let's go see if dinner is ready yet."

***

The four of them sat around the table, eating the spaghetti Mr. Heere had prepared, with the help of Heidi of course.

"T-this is really good, Mr. Heere."

Mr. Heere grinned, "Why, thank you, Evan. Your mother helped a lot, too."

Heidi giggled, "I still have a bit of home cooking left in me."

"Just a bit?" Jeremy asked. "This is so good!

"Well, I'm glad you boys like it," Heidi said with a smile.

"Me too," Mr. Heere stated, smiling at Heidi, "Actually, kids, we have some important news."

Evan set down his fork, looking up with a surprised expression. "Im-important n-news?"

"Yes, dear," Heidi began, "You see," she shared a look with Mr. Heere, "we're getting married.

"Wh-what?" Evan asked, subtly worried about the news.

"No way!" Jeremy, who hadn't stopped eating when Evan did, yelled through a mouthful of food.

Mr. Heere laughed. "Yes really! Now chew your food!"

Jeremy quickly chewed and shallowed, looking up at his dad and Heidi. "That's great! Isn't this great Evan?"

"Y-yeah... great."

"Evan, what's wrong? Aren't you excited?" Heidi asked with a frown.

"Its just that... That this is big change! Its always just been you and me and now-!" He brought his voice back down, "Now its all changing."

Heidi reached across the table to grab her son's hand. "Evan, don't worry. Just because we have Joe and Jeremy now, doesn't mean it won't still be you and me. Your mom isn't going anywhere, you mom is staying right here. So lets try to have an optimistic outlook, okay? Maybe this'll be the year when everything starts getting better."

Evan took a deep breath, "Maybe."

Jeremy smiled, "And beisdes, it'll just be like an upgrade."

Evan gave a small smile in return. "Like, uh... a family upgrade? Yeah... that's okay. I guess."

"See? This is going to be great, I can tell. Wait who's going to live where?"

"Well," Mr. Heere started, "we were thinking we could all move to a new house. How would you guys like that?"

"That sounds great!" Jeremy cheered. Evan muttered in acceptance and continued to finish his dinner.

___

hope you guys like angst bc this is gonna be angst.

enjoy the happy chapter while you can.

-becca