𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐒 - 𝐄𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐍

𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐘 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄

𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚: 𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗨𝗔𝗚𝗘, 𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗩𝗜𝗢𝗟𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗕𝗔𝗟/𝗣𝗛𝗬𝗦𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗟 𝗔𝗕𝗨𝗦𝗘

𝙺𝙸𝙼𝙱𝙴𝚁𝙻𝚈 𝙲𝙰𝚂𝚂𝙸𝙳𝚈

Once Ed had dropped me off at home, I made my way into the lounge and found both of my parents sitting in silence. My father was filling out some paperwork whilst Maureen was cradling a sleeping Michael in her arms.

"I'm back." I said and smiled at them, dropping my bag onto the floor by the lounge doorway and making my way over to Andrew who was crawling around on the floor. "Also.." I decided to get it over and done with now. "You guys don't mind me having a sleepover..do you?." I asked as I picked my little brother up, looking at my parents as Andrew began to pull on the ends of my hair.

"A sleepover?." My dads eyes lit up as he looked up to me from his work. I nodded and smiled down at him.

"Yeah. Robin, Kathleen and Paige." I told him rather than the pair of them.

"That's wonderful, pumpkin." My father said with a large grin. "Of course we don't mind, do we, hon?." My dad turned his attention to my mother.

"As long as you can still help out around the house." Maureen said with a straight face, clearly not bothered what I was doing. All she cared about was me doing her job for her.

"Yeah, I will." I nodded and pulled Andrews small fingers away from my hair. "Stop that." I muttered to him.

"I don't recognise the name Paige, though." My father brought up Kathleen's girlfriend.

"She just joined the group a few months ago. She's always with Kathleen so we don't really see her a lot." I said to him, not wanting to tell them about their situation.

"Your group just seems to get bigger and bigger, doesn't it?." My father chuckled and carried on with his paper work.

"I can't see anybody else joining it now." I responded to him and put Andrew back on the floor who immediately bursted into tears from the lack of contact. "Really?." I asked him with a sigh, pulling him back into my arms and letting him sit on my hip again.

"He's a little bugger." My dad said and glanced up at us. "You were the same as a baby." He added on. "Wouldn't let anybody put you down unless you was asleep. A real nightmare when it came to early hours of the morning and we had your uncle screaming at us the next day because the neighbours were complaining." Hacker sniggered at the memory in his head as Maureen sighed.

"He says that like he was the one who got up with you." I turned my attention to her, a little shocked that she even cared about me as a baby. "Don't look at me like that." She said quietly. "You wasn't a twin, and we were somewhere I actually felt at home." She tried to justify her actions with the boys. "It was different then, Kimberly." She said my name. "I was younger, I had more help. Your father worked earlier hours and actually lived with us." She shot a dig at my dad who sighed and dropped his pen.

That was my cue to leave.

"Let me take him." I quickly said to Maureen before they started arguing and woke him up. She handed me the little boy and I left them be, taking my brothers upstairs and into their cots, which they were getting way too big for now.

"I'm trying to provide for us, Maureen!." I heard my father shout at her as I opened the door to my parents room.

"Don't give me that bullshit!." She shouted back.