Everything Is Blue

Chapter 30

Waking up in your childhood bedroom after having been away for so long was surreal. The feeling happened every year Kimbra came back to Brittlesburg. She'd open her eyes, and lay in bed for several minutes. Try to process that she was here, actually here.

She sat up and wrapped the blanket more snugly around her shoulders.

Old posters of boy bands covered a wall. Framed photos of friends and family covered another. The room hadn't changed much since she left for college. She told herself to take it all down and update it, but she couldn't. Letting go of the past didn't come easy. Maybe it's because she didn't like change. Didn't adapt to it well.

You do need to get rid of those posters. You aren't seventeen anymore.

Kimbra groggily wiped her eyes as she slowly made her way down the staircase. The sound of talking echoed from the large dining room. At the table, sat Bud and her father. Loren flipped through an album of some kind, pointing out certain areas of the page, and then they'd laugh together.

Her lips curled in a flicker of a grin. But it quickly disappeared once she had realized what her father was showing Bud.

Kimbra quickly shuffled into the dining room, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair a mess. "What are you doing?"

Loren flipped a page. "Showing Bud your baby photos."

"Dad," she threw her head back and groaned. "Stop, that's embarrassing."

Teasing one another was often the source of amusement in the Wulfe family. Their favorite pastime (other than playing in the snow).

"Kimbra, there is nothing embarrassing about being the world's cutest baby." Loren smiled, knowing how irritated it made his only daughter.

Bud pointed at one of the photos and let out a small chuckle. "She looks like a little puffball here."

She folded her arms over her chest. "Bud."

Loren made it even worse. "As a toddler, Kimbra was always adamant about not wearing clothes. Here she took them off and ran off to play in a mudhole." He pointed at a photo of a little naked Kimbra, sitting in a mudhole.

"Okay, that's enough," Kimbra reached for the large photo album. "No more."

Her father shut the album, and held it out of her reach. "Fine, I'll stop and put it away since you're so ashamed."

"Thank you."

"I'll show him your high school photos instead."

"Dad. Don't you dare. Don't even go there." Kimbra said, as quick as she could.

He laughed. "Alright, I won't. I was only kidding, sweetheart."

Bud leaned over, quietly speaking to the older canine. "You will show me those later, right?"

"Absolutely." Loren nodded.

But Kimbra didn't hear either of them. She was too preoccupied in the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee into a blue mug. She's always preferred her father's to the ones in St. Canard. It was more familiar. More comforting.

The backdoor of the cabin opened and shut, and in walked Grandma Carter. She almost passed through the kitchen without seeing her granddaughter. Not that Kimbra would have minded.

"Morning grandma," Kimbra called out as she set the coffee pot back down.

"Mornin' Kimbra." Grandma Carter stopped in the middle of the room, placed her hands on her hips, and sighed. "Who took my reading glasses!? I've been looking for them all morning! I even went by that sorry brother of yours place, and he swore he hadn't taken them."