With You ✔

22

Ellie

"Please be careful, you know how those crowds can be." Katie says as the twins and I stand in the entryway putting on our shoes and coats.

"You mean how Finn can get." Kit says as he gives his brother a look. Finn sticks his arm through the sleeve of his jacket rather aggressively, causing it to smack Kit in the face, to which he mumbles an oops before grabbing the car keys off the small table and going to hug Katie goodbye.

"Ellie, please watch after them."

"Don't worry, this isn't my first babysitting job." I give her a reassuring smile as I follow Kit out the door and towards the car, where Finn is already seated in the drivers seat. I climb into the backseat so that Kit can sit upfront, and before I can even reach for my seat belt, Finn hands me a sheet of paper.

"What's this?" I ask, taking the paper from him and sitting it on the seat next to me as I buckle myself in, picking it up and looking at the pictures of video games, shoes, and clothing items that are printed on it.

"That's your list." Kit answers me, taking a similar paper from his brother and looking it over.

"My list?"

"Yeah, those are the items you're responsible for getting. I've already sent you the money through Venmo." Finn explains as he begins backing the car out of the driveway. I check my phone and see that Finn had in fact sent me money just a few minutes ago.

"I'm supposed to get all of this?" I take another look at the list. These items are spread out among at least five different stores. There's no way I can get them all, not when a crowd of other people are going after the same things as me.

"Just get what you can, El." Kit says at the same time Finn says, "Yes."

"This is impossible. Let me see your list." I reach for the paper in Kit's hands.

"Welcome to your first Kennedy Black Friday mission, Ellie Thomas."

When I had agreed to join the twins on their trip to the mall for Black Friday, I wasn't aware of just how serious they were about the deals. Apparently they had spent the past week planning this night, and not only are we going to the mall, but once we're done there we're going to the strip mall on the other side of town to see what is left there. I've never been Black Friday shopping before, so it's all a little overwhelming to me at the moment, but this Thanksgiving has been full of new things so I'm also excited.

I've spent the entire day with the twins and their family, not just their mom and grandmother, but their aunts, uncles, cousins, and even some family friends. I didn't have any Thanksgiving plans, I doubt my dad even knew today was a holiday and my mom's family lives out of state so it's just the two of us and she is attending a Friendsgiving with her work, so I spent the day with Kit and his family.

It was different than the holiday meals that I'm used to, that's for sure. Everyone arrived at the house early in the day and helped cook, and I was quickly put on pie duty along with one of Kit's aunts and his younger cousin. I was introduced as Kit's girlfriend, and then treated like I was one of the family - Katie even insisted that I be included in the family photos, even after I tried to tell her it was okay and offered to be the photographer instead. It was a nice evening full of laughter, conversation, food, games, and togetherness. It was everything that my family lacked, and I crave more of it - the happiness and stability.

Lord knows that those are two things my own family is lacking. While my mom and I have been talking more and she's given up on the apologizing for the most part, we've still got some work to do on our relationship. It's been a month since I left my dad's house in the middle of the night, and two weeks after that night he finally called me. Two weeks. Two whole weeks before he found the time to contact me - his daughter that left in the middle of the night and never returned. I sent his call straight to voicemail and let Finn listen to it a few days later because I didn't want to hear his excuses. I let Finn listen to tell me if I was missing out on anything worth hearing, sadly, I wasn't so I decided that as far as my dad is concerned, I'm done.