How To Stay Afloat (BxB)

Chapter 67: Please

TW: this chapter deals with some heavy topics and there will be mentions of a suicide attempt and suicidal ideation.

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I sleep until 10 and wake up to someone bursting into my room.

I groan loudly. Some things never change.

"Hey baby brother. How are you today on this wonderful day?" Caleb asks me.

I grab my pillow and aim it at him. He dotches and the pillow flies through the door, hitting Carla in the face.

Caleb starts laughing loudly and Carla looks angrily at me.

"Sorry." I say to her, giggling.

"I hear you got a coffee date and I decided to just come along." Caleb announces happily. "Let's meet up right now and spend the whole day together."

I roll my eyes. "Don't you have your own friends?" I ask him annoyed.

"Nope." Caleb says, popping the 'p'. "Let's go to the mall and celebrate your first day of freedom."

"Freedom as in not grounded anymore or as in single?" I ask him.

He wears an innocent smile. "Both?"

I roll my eyes and then roll over again. "Just let me sleep a little longer."

"We're leaving in twenty minutes." Carla says and then they leave me alone.

I get ready for the day, putting on a simple black outfit. When I walk downstairs I find my parents talking in the kitchen. They look pretty upset, whispering and stopping as soon as I walk in.

Are they secretly getting divorced or something? They did fight more often lately.

"Good morning." I say as I grab a glass and fill myself a glass of water to take a pill of pain medication.

Carla and Caleb already left the house and are waiting outside.

"Sam. Do you have time?" Dad asks me.

"Uh yeah? For a moment." I say. "What's up?"

I hear Caleb's car horn. "Let's talk later, okay?" I say and grab my jacket. "We can do the drug test in the evening." I suggest. "See you."

As I step out of the house I feel like a prisoner walking free for the first time in years. Okay. Maybe that's a bad comparison. But it feels pretty good.

The sun is shining, making the ten degrees feel like twenty.

"Hurry up, Harry's waiting." Carla says and I quickly get in the backseat.

Carla turns up the music and off we go. Even though it's the beginning of december it gives beginning of summer break vibes.

We spend four hours at the shopping center. At home I would be crying all day. This is much better.

Harry and Caleb needed a moment to warm up to each other again since the incident with Noah, but after a few minutes of awkwardness they're back to fooling around like they always did.

We shop, eat ice cream, drink bubble tea, eat pizza and in the end Caleb gets us all kicked out because at first he spit around the pearls of his bubble tea because he liked the sound they made when he shot them through the straw and then he held onto the side panel of the escalator, hanging onto it as he was lifted up and then he jumped down into a plant area. The security guard saw us and chased us until we were circled and got kicked out.

It's a good day. A really good day. We spend the whole day together, driving around the city with the car. Caleb even lets Carla drive.

I've never driven his car, he doesn't allow anyone. Carla seems to be the only exception.