The Highland Kids: Closet Space

Chapter 27

November fifth had rolled around and bonfire night was upon us. Meredith told us after breakfast that Katherine was ready for visitors and she wanted to take someone with her every time she visited Katherine until she was ready to go home.
"That way, everyone will get to meet her without crowding her. Who wants to be the first to meet her?"
"I'll go," Em said. "I have nothing else going on. I'll go with you today."
"Alright, Aria is in charge while I'm gone. Call me if it's an emergency."
"Will do, see you when you get back."

Em and Meredith headed out and I decided to practice braids and updos using Alyza as my practice guinea pig. I threw in a scalp massage as my way of thanking her for agreeing to do it.
"Y'know, your scalp massages are really relaxing." Alyza sank into the chair a bit. "I would pay good money just for you to massage my scalp with scented oils."
"Really? I'll have to get more as I only have lavender scent. What's your favourite scent?"
"I don't know, I like peppermint. It just reminds me of Christmas."
"I'll have to get some the next time I go out. Now, what braid should I do for you?"
"Do you know how to do a fishtail braid?"
"Sure do, sit back and relax. Let my hands work their magic."
Alyza lowered her shoulders and her body looked slack. I started to weave the strands of hair together and tied them once I reached the end of the braid.

"Alright, your braid is done, how do you feel about it?"
"You did a really good job on it, thanks for doing it for me."
"Thank you for agreeing to do it. Y'know, you spend a lot of time in the free room dancing, but I've never seen you actually dance before."
"I'm not that good, I only dance to improve flexibility and for fitness."
"I'm sure you're amazing. What if you and I did a choreography while nobody can disturb us."
"Don't you have a bad leg?"
"Only somewhat, just some balance issues that I'm able to fix with light exercises and at-home massage. Now come on, I did your hair. You show me how to dance."
"Fine, head upstairs, I'll go grab my speaker and we meet in the free space."

I walked into the free room that we used for yoga and as a dance space. Alyza joined me with her speaker and her phone.
"Alright, let's start with a simple warmup. Just stretching and some light cardio."

_________

Light cardio my ass.
I was ready to pass out when the song was over. Alyza looked like she was about to go on a date. I looked like I had just fallen in a pool.
"Great, ready to start dancing?"
"Yeah, just give me a minute..... to catch my breath."
"You have one minute before we start choreography."

I quickly went downstairs and got myself a cup of water and downed it like I had nothing to drink in days. I also took initiative and filled up a re-useable water bottle.
Once I was properly hydrated, I headed up the stairs again and was properly stretched and ready to dance.
"Alright Danny girl, I'm just going to put my music on shuffle and all we have to do is listen to the song and the body takes over."
"The body takes over." I told myself. "Just listen to the song, and let the body take over"

A song started playing and I followed Alyza's lead as she started dancing. I could see why Alyza dances so often. She allowed herself to shut her mind off and express herself through the song.

The song ended and the two of us took a water break and talked.
"So Jordan, how was that?"
"Surprisingly fun. I can see why you do this so much, it's quite entertaining."
"And it's good for you, so there's that too."

A quick glance at the time told me it was time for us to eat lunch. As Meredith was gone and Aria was cleaning, we decided to head downstairs and see what we could make ourselves.

"Let's see here, we could make sandwiches again. We have everything here."
Alyza headed over to the baking side of the kitchen.
"We could eat some of the scones Aidan and I made the other day. It'll help us clean out the fridge and give us more space."
"Alright, sandwiches and scones. Do you want your scones heated?"
"Sure, can you get the bread while you're on the baking side?"
"Yep."

For the next fifteen minutes, we sliced vegetables and assorted meats and cheeses for sandwiches.
"Want to call the others down for a build your own sandwiches?"
"Already on it" Alyza had pulled out her phone and sent the message to the group chat.

Only Arty and Aidan came down.
"Jackson's in a drawing hyper-focus." Aidan was assembling his sandwich. "He's in the zone and he'll be down either when he's finished or his hand cramps."

Charlie came down shortly after and it was weird seeing them because they weren't doing oxygen therapy and as such they weren't wearing their breathing tube.
"Oh god I'm starving." They assembled their sandwich and got all their medications stirred into a small cup of American pudding.
I took my plate and walked to the table.
"Help yourself to one of Aidan and Alyza's cranberry scones. I would sell my left kidney to get the recipe."
"Why not your right kidney?" Aidan asked while posing like a mobster. "Why not both kidneys for my scone recipe?"

We all sat around the table and started talking a bit more as families do. It was at this time that Jackson showed up and started to fix his sandwich and sat down.
"You know, I've been thinking, we don't have a name for our family. Like, we don't have a name for us as a family. So, I've had a couple of ideas for names to call ourselves."
Aidan punched his shoulder. "Let's hear 'em."
"Alright, "The Europeans."
"Not all of us are native Europeans." I glared at him.
"The Highlanders?"
"That sounds like the name of a bagpipe band." Arty said.
"The Hounds?"
"Okay, that sounds like the name of a biker gang."
"Those are all the ones I had." Jackson said, defeated.
"Don't be so hard on yourself," Aidan stole the scone off of Jackson's plate. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

It was at this time that Aria came down from cleaning the upstairs area and saw we were all sitting together.
"In the short time I've known you all, Meredith did a good job of taking care of all of you. I'm sure one of these days she'll make it official and adopt you. Now, I'll leave you to your sandwiches."