Defying Nature [ON HOLD]

Chapter 4

Sun ran into the lobby, not caring that she was wet or cold. She went to the bathroom and locked herself in a stall.

She wasn't mad anymore. She knew that he meant he was sorry.

Suddenly she realized that she left her siblings alone upstairs! She ran to the elevator and jabbed the thirty-third button.

The elevator doors weren't all the way open when Sun ran through them. She threw open the door and ran in.

What she found broke her heart, all three kids were sitting on the couch. They were huddled under all the blankets she left by the fireplace. One of them was whimpering. By the fireplace there was a burn mark.

"Oh my god! I'm so sorry!" Sun cried. "I'll never leave you guys again! I'm so sorry!"                            The kids turned and looked at her. Tommy was crying like the other two and he said, "How could you! We were left here alone!"

Sally piped up, "We- we thought you got lost in the snow."

"Yeah," Mikey agreed. He almost never talked. This had to be serious.

"What were you doing anyway?" Tommy asked.

"I was-- well I was... It's nothing."

"You went out there for nothing?"

"Well, no."

"So what were you doing?" Sally demanded.

"I was talking with a friend." Sun admitted. It wasn't lying but it wasn't the whole truth. She felt horrible about leaving the kids alone in the storm.

"You left us here to talk to a friend?!" Tommy was furious; his face was red, he was holding pencils  out of protection. They were all he had as wepons. He was holding them so hard, they looked about to snap. Sun bent down to Tommy's height and said,

"Tommy, look I'm really sorry. Please, you have to forgive me." There were tears in her eyes now, "He's really important to me, OK? We were mad at each other and-- and, well, I had to go down there."

The pencils in his hand snapped and fell to the floor. Tommy turned and ran down the hall, he slammed the door to his room. You could see the trail of tears on the floor. "Tommy!" Sun cried. "Wait!" But he didn't. Tommy didn't come out.

There was a pause. A sad, depressing pause that made everyone in the room cry. It was silent, and the only thing that broke it was Mikey's quiet, delicate voice. "Was your friend named Jack?"