Never Letting Go

Family Bonds

At three o’clock in the morning all of the power turns back on, blinding all of the poor unsuspecting people who lay below the bright lights. Everyone groans and sits up, their eyes slowly adjusting to the light.

We all walk around the house turning off the lights and any other appliance that was accidently left on, we regroup in the lounge and attempt to back to sleep but it turns into a family wide discussion group.

Blake offers up a topic first, “What do you think about the new burger at Maca’s?”

Lay in between Kyle’s arms, half aware of the discussion happening around me.

Matthew pretty much ignored Blake’s conversation starter, “How have you guys been feeling about Darci being around?” from that point everything has a dream like quality to it.

I’m still aware of Kyle’s arms wrapped around my torso and the sort rumble coming from his chest when he talks. “It’s nice. She has this way of adding a girly feel but she still gets down with the guys without acting like a guy.” Blake commented.

Lachie agreed with him, “And it’s cool to pick on a girl and she doesn’t take it personally, sometimes she gets you back and she gets you good.” After a few more comments from the rest of the family Kyle finally speaks.

“I’ve always loved this girl.” His arms softly tighten around me, “but my heads a bit confused.” His words turn into whispers, like he’s giving away a big secret. No one carries on with the subject, instead it covers a zig zag of topics like rugby, movies, cooking, big toes (How did Lachie think of that? I honestly don’t know).

Everyone stops talking and just lays in dark, drifting off into sleep.

I sit up, rubbing my eyes. I look around seeing the boys strewn around the lounge, mouths open and snoring, Matthew with drool running down the side face. I can’t see Tess anywhere.

I get up, being careful to not stand on Kyle. I walk into the kitchen to see Tess slaving away over the hot stove. I pull my hair into a messy bun, pieces of hair falling into my face and I grab an apron, “What can I do to help?” Tess pushes a cartoon of eggs and a whisk into my hands, “Can you make scrambled eggs?”

I get to work right away, cracking eggs, adding milk, whisking away at the mixture. Tess throws a bunch of ingredients into a bowl and ends up with a stack of golden pancakes; if I didn’t have a recipe to follow I would have a stack of lumpy moosh.

I hear one of the boys mumble from the lounge and suddenly there walking through the kitchen door, smiling at the buffet of food laid out on the table. They all cram around the table, asking for bacon, eggs, pancakes or maple syrup to be passed down to them.

Kyle sits next to me, rubbing his stomach. “That was so good.” All the boys seemed to mimic Kyle’s state of bliss, every scrap of food was gone from the plates and I’m pretty sure they inhaled the smell from the air.

Once all the plates were cleared from the table I went outside to see how much of the ice has melted. The ground was total slush, the only trace of ice was the stuff covering the driveway, still no way to get to civilisation but I’m quite enjoying being secluded and kept distant from the world.

“Are you missing the outside world?” Kyle laughs.

“Yup… that’s it” I roll my eyes.

“I noticed I haven’t been waking up to your screams, I’m proud of you.” Kyle pats my head like I’m a small child, I turn around and jab him in the ribs, “Thanks” I gleam. We walk around the mud pit that was once known as our front yard and finally stop to climb a tree, escaping from the mud that drowns the earth below us.

“What did you mean last night?” my curiosity gets the better of, I wasn’t meant to ask. Idiot.

He raises an eye brow, “Uh? Care to explain?”

“Why are you confused? I heard what you said last night, sort of.” I mumble shyly, not wanting to make a fool of myself if it ended up to be all a dream.

He doesn’t reply for ages. It makes me nervous, have I made a total fool of myself? He finally opens his mouth, “I don’t know what to tell you.” He keeps looking down at his feet, dangling over the side of the branch.

“You don’t have to tell me anything, it’s got nothing to do with me anyway.” I push it to the back of my mind.

“That’s the thing; it has everything to do with you.”