A Little Bit Yours

Chapter IV - The Party

Sussex, England, 2015.

I stretch out my arms and yawn sheepishly. The sun shines bright outside my window for the first time since me and mom arrived here. Samuel told us this would be a rare event and I am excited to experience a sunny day in this pretty town. I immediately jump out of bed and run downstairs to the kitchen. Samuel laughs as soon as he sees me.

"Good morning, little brother. I see you are very excited today." He muses and sets a plate in front of me as I sit down. "Mom went out to get some bread, she will be back soon."

I start digging furiously into my food which just makes him laugh harder. "Jesus, Josh calm down! The food isn't going anywhere." Mom walks in the house and raises an eyebrow in amusement looking at us. "What's with all the hurry, boys?"

"Mom! It's sunny outside, we need to go out and enjoy the sun." I smile widely and finish my breakfast. I get up from the table and stare at them hoping they would move faster. "Joshy, go have a shower and get dressed. Your brother has a picnic planned for us today near the river."

That's all it takes for me to run up the stairs and start to get ready. Halfway through I realize I forgot to ask the most important question, so I go back to the top of the stairs and yell for my brother. He comes running thinking something has happened. "Sammy, can Ella come with us to the picnic?" Sam smiles at me and shakes his head in disbelief. "Caroline and Ella are coming with us, I invited them. But please avoid giving me minor heart attacks like that next time. I thought you had hurt yourself or something." I giggle quietly and go back to my room and finish getting ready. 

I like my room in Sam's house. It's the right size and cozy, I hope one day I get to live here with him. Hopefully mom and dad can come too and we could start to be closer to a happy family like we once were. I think mom doesn't know that I realize what is happening, I know dad isn't going on work trips because this always happens after he often comes stumbling inside the house. I just don't understand the reason why that happens, is he sick? Sometimes he comes inside with a very strong smell on him that I don't know what it is. She avoids talking to him about it when I'm in the room but I can sometimes hear her lowly asking him to stop being like that and to get help. Maybe dad is sick and he just doesn't want to get better, I would like to be able to ask him to do so. But then he goes on these trips and when he comes back, he's my dad, the normal and playful one. It's sad that it never lasts. 

"Josh?" My mom calls me out from my deep thinking and comes inside the room. "Are you ready to go? We still need to pick Caroline and Ella up and drive for a bit until we reach the lake."

I nod excitedly, shaking all thoughts of my dad from my mind. I get up from bed and follow my mom downstairs where Sam already has everything setup and ready to go. We all load Sam's car and I get in to the backseat, pulling out my new phone and earphones that Sam gave me the night we arrived so I can video chat him whenever I want to. This made me really happy, but he did tell me to be careful with the timezone difference and we both laughed about it. He gave me access to his Spotify account and helped me create my own playlist and add all my favorite songs in there. I keep adding songs while we are on our way to meet Caroline and Ella. 

Soon the car comes to a stop and I look out the window and see them standing at their front porch. They both come in the backseat and Ellie sits next to me. I smile at her and she smiles back brightly. We are always happy to be together, she's a really good friend to me. I hand her one of the earphones and put on a playlist of the top songs in the charts right now. Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran starts playing. We both sway along to the song in a goofy way and Caroline laughs beside us. "What are you kids listening to?" Samuel laughs and connects my phone to the car and now the song is playing in the car speakers. We keep doing the same thing and Caroline joins us this time.