Blanket of Stars (Chaelisa ver.)

Chapter 9: Comfort

When I think of songs from my childhood, I immediately think of the mixed tapes my parents used to make for our road trip vacations. They were songs I heard constantly for a certain period of time but my first thought is being in the car and my mother telling me to turn the volume down on my game boy because one of my songs just came on. I think she did that because she could no longer stand the constant sounds of 'Tetris' or 'Mario'. She would play them so loud I couldn't hear my own voice as I tried to sing along.

I have the most embarrassing picture in one of my photo albums of when Alice dug a hole in the sand for me to get into. All that's visible is my head and her lying next to me with two of her fingers held up behind my head. I have the goofiest smile on my face.

My mother always loved that picture for some reason.

One of my favourite pictures of Alice is from the same roll of film as my embarrassing picture. She wouldn't take her shirt off for over a week when we were on the beach so when she eventually did, her arms were tanned and her torso was white. She's wearing a smug look on her face that I wouldn't like on anybody else, but with her, it's endearing.

Her smirk got me into trouble more than once when we were growing up. It would make me smile when I wasn't supposed to be smiling. Even if I was angry with her, all she had to do was smirk and I'd start smiling. Or when she added an extra expression. God, that was the worst. I would just burst out laughing at the most inappropriate moment.

The first time my mother caught me smoking, for instance. I wasn't literally smoking, it was one of those fake ones you could buy. Alice was the person who talked me into doing it. We were watching Are You Afraid of The Dark when we heard our mother's car pull up in the driveway and she threw the fake cigarette at me before telling me not to punk out.

Surprisingly, I kept the smile off my face long enough for my mother to drop her keys to the floor and clamp a hand over her mouth. I was passing it over to Alice when her feet marched over to us and ripped it out of my hands.

The colour immediately returned to her face as soon as she discovered it was fake, but she still told me that if she ever caught me smoking she would make me eat it. I never did smoke a real cigarette.

Alice was standing behind her during the length of her health speech, pulling the most hilarious face before smirking. It slayed me.

I was grounded for two days.

"Casper? Are you floating around?" Lisa yells from the backyard.

I jump up and open the kitchen window, leaning out of it some. She's sitting at the outside table with her iPhone resting in front of her. "I don't float. What do you want?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to see if you were around."

I shrug my shoulders unnecessarily. "I'm always around."

"Will you make me a sandwich?" she asks.

"No." I laugh.

Lisa briefly turns her head to the window before moving it back, a smile fighting to break free. "I don't charge you rent, the least you could do is save my life when it's in jeopardy."

"If you're so hungry, you could stop doing absolutely nothing and fix yourself something to eat."

"Roseanne," she drawls out my name. It's the first time I've heard her say it. I nearly fall out of the window. "Are you still there?" she carries on from my lack of response.

My body shifts backward in case I do actually fall. "I'm still here."

"So, do I have to make that sandwich myself?"