Bad Company

Four ꨄ

Fae A.

The annoying sound of my phone ringing interrupts my perfectly peaceful nap. Blindly I thrash around the bed searching for my phone, my eyes not yet ready to adjust to the real world.

"What do you want?" I groan groggily when I find the source of my grumpiness.

"Fae, I'm here. I've been calling and ringing the doorbell for the past 30 minutes" realization sets in and I spring up out of the bed.

"Holy shit, Claud I am so sorry. I'm coming to the door right now." I quickly slip on my slides and rush to the door.

When the door opens she throws her as around my mid section, squeezing me painfully tight. I never realized how much short she is compared to me. It's been some time since I've seen her.

"Nice to see you too sis" I chuckle, hugging her back. "My bad for taking so long, I probably should have had someone drop off the key to you so you could get in."

"No worries, could you help me with the boxes in my car?"

"Putting me to work already I see" I sigh dramatically.

"Oh quit your whining you big baby. It's not that much stuff" Claudia giggles.

"That's because I paid people to do most of the work. You have a lot of shit." I call out as I make my way to her car.

Once her car is emptied I decide to be a good little sister and help her unpack her things.

"You still have this?" I chuckle holding up a dingy old poorly made blanket.

"What?! It was the first gift you made me when you thought you wanted to make blankets!" She quickly defends herself, "do you remember how much mom hated when you'd cut up the sheets to make things?"

"Hey! I was a small kid with big dreams" I chuckle, "too bad they had other careers plans for me. I would have made a great blanket maker" I pout playfully.

"No you wouldn't have, but it was a cute phase you went through. Probably the only one I got to see before.."

I place my hand on her shoulder, "forget about that. We are together now, what they did was so horrible and I'm sorry they sent you away." I say softly hoping to comfort her.

I have always felt so much guilt for taking all of our parents' attention from Claudia. She must have felt so unloved as a kid, I can't even imagine being sent away for such a heartless reason. Sometimes I wish I was the one who was shipped away just so I wouldn't have to live this miserable life. Now more than ever I am determined to make it up to her.

"Where'd you just go? Is everything okay?" Claudia asks snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Its nothing" I shrug. We continued to unpack her things until I got too bored and too hungry to do anything but complain about how hungry I was.

"I can't take anymore of your complaining" Claudia whines.

"Great so we're getting food!" I cheer up quickly, "you have to drive though, people know my car" I roll my eyes.

"How do you deal with no privacy? I bet people know this address" she sighs.

"I would hope not. That would be really annoying" I groan.

We make our way to Claudia's car and get caught in an awkward silence.

"So.. you gonna tell me where we're going to eat or are we just gonna sit here?" Claudia says.

I chuckle lightly, "right umm how about I just search up restaurants nearby and we just pick a random one?"

"Sounds good to me" she shrugs.

I do just that and we end up agreeing on some diner a few blocks away called Stargrove Diner. From the photos I saw it looks pretty cute and cozy.

                                         Billie O.

"Stay right here baby, I'm just going to the back to grab some more napkins okay?" Alana says cupping my cheeks in her soft hands.

"Otay" I shrug, when she lets me go I go right back to coloring in my dinosaur coloring book.

I hear the bell on the door chime, letting me know that someone just walked in. From the corner of my eye I notice two people joining me at the counter seats just a few feet away.

"Hi cutie" I hear a woman say. Out of curiosity I pry my eyes off of my book and face the person who is possibly talking to me.

My eyes widen a little, I recognize her but I just can't figure out how. Stupid little brain! I point to myself, silently asking if she is talking to me. She chuckles and nods lightly. Her eyes quickly go from mine, to my coloring book then back to me. Dang it!

I begin to close my book when she speaks again, "hey no it's okay. I like to color in coloring books too." She smiles at me and I shyly smile back, my cheeks probably as red as a tomato.

"Hi, welcome to Stargrove Diner" Lani says once she comes from the back.

"Hi, thanks for having us." A girl behind the other girl beams, "we'd like a table for two please."

"Actually is it alright if we sit here?" The nice girl says after she stops staring at me.

My eyes fall to Alana, she gives me a knowing look and I feel my cheeks heat up again.

"Um sure" she shrugs, handing them menus.

I can't help but eye the nice girl with the pretty eyes, she looks like a model or something.