Insufficient

Chapter 20 - Sleepy

Julianna's POV

"Juliana!" I hear Justin's voice call out, as it has been for a while.

"What, Justin?" I yell when I feel he is finally within close enough range.

"There you are." Justin sounds slightly out of breath as he plops down next to me. I'm currently laying down next to a small stream in the woods surrounding our house.

"We've been looking for you. You said you were going to take a nap, but you just disappeared." Justin picked up a rock and threw it into the water. It landed with a splash, making a small pool of fish disperse.

"I did take a nap. Then I came out here. There is no sleep to be had with Lorenzo's kids around." I complain, moving to throw my arm over my eyes to shield them from the sun.

It's still summer here, which sucks, because I am not a heat girly. Give me winter. I'll even settle for fall.

"Elijah was mad, but they checked the camera's and saw that you were fine." He continued talking, picking up another rock and throwing it. This time, he missed the stream altogether.

"What do you want, Ju?" I ask, annoyed.

"Dad explained what happened yesterday. You don't seem very little anymore." I pursed my lips together. Of course that's what this was about.

"Well, neither do you." I comment, looking at his black Nirvana band tee and shorts. He just sighs, looking down. Instantly I feel bad. I'm not sure why, but Justin just seems really disappointed right now.

"Look, I'm sorry if I'm being snappy. Waking up in bed with your uncle and finding out that you're missing two days worth of memories isn't exactly pleasant. Add a house full of new people and well... I just got overwhelmed." Justin perked up a little bit at the apology, and then he smirks.

"Well it sounds bad when you say it like that." I reach over and slap his leg, and he retaliates by popping my forehead.

We lay there for a little while longer, listening to the water and the birds. I have to swat away multiple insects, and by the sounds of it, so did Justin.

"Are you ready to go back yet?" He huffs.

"No." I say, but sit up regardless. We have to go back sometime, and Justin seemed to understand that. He got up, grabbed my hand, and started leading me back in what I assume is the direction of the house.

Safe to say, if Justin hadn't come and got me, I probably would have been fucked. The way he went seemed almost completely different to the way I came, but none-the-less we got out of the forest alive, which is what I was concerned about.

"You know," He turned to face me with an ornery look in his eye. "If you didn't want to go inside just yet, we could always play for a little bit." He suggested, turning towards the huge playset they had in their backyard.

I say playset, but it was more like a playvillage. It was multiple levels, (like, three) had slides on both sides, climbing walls, a miniature zipline, swings, bridges and small climbing tubes connecting different sections. And not a whole lot of it was open area. Over half of the section was closed in, with little windows for light. It did make me wonder just what could have been in there.

"I don't know." I knew that I shouldn't. Girls shouldn't act so immature, I was too old to be playing around like a little kid. But there was still some small part of me that was begging to just play. Even for a little bit.

"Well, it's okay if you don't. If you'd rather go inside and meet all of Lorenzo's kids. That's fine too." He had the audacity to look like he still thought I was going to choose to go back inside after that.