Josie was distracted.
She had managed to shove all her anxiousness about Hope’s possible reaction to her ill advised attempt at a relationship off her mind during her family vacation and surprisingly, it had worked.
They really had an A-mazing time as Lizzie put it. They went to a cabin that her mom owned a few hours away with a lake nearby, where they spent a lot of time just goofing around in the water with their dad and getting suntanned with their mom. Even if their mom couldn’t really get a tan, it was good spending time with her, she’d been traveling for a few weeks on recruiting missions and their dad had spent a lot of time training with Hope for the last year. It was really good having them both there with nothing to do or worry about except being a family.
They'd had family movie night almost every night and, in the middle of the week, the town they were in was having some kind of spring festival so they spent the whole day trying all kinds of food and sweets. It was an overall wonderful spring break; she had never felt closer to her parents and her sister.
It was remarkably easy to forget that just before it started she had foolishly thought that confessing her feelings to Hope was a good idea. But with only a day until they were meant to be at school again all those fears came rushing back and she found herself a bit on edge in the middle of breakfast.
They were at a small diner that made really good blueberry pancakes and were in the middle of deciding what to do for the rest of their last day here; they were set to leave really early tomorrow.
“What if we went on one of those hot air balloon things we saw being offered when we were at the festival?” Lizzie poses, grinning expectantly.
“I think those were only offered for that day sweetie,” their dad says.
“Oh,” Lizzie frowns. “Then I don’t know. Jo, what do you wanna do?”
Josie focuses back on the conversation when she hears her name being called but has no idea what they were talking about.
“What?”
“Are you okay, honey? You seem a little distracted today and you’ve barely touched your pancakes,” Caroline asks a little concerned. “Are you feeling sick? You’d have devoured them by now; you did every morning this week.”
“I’m fine, mom,” she assures her. “Just a little anxious about going back to class. This week has been pretty amazing, I don't really want to go back to doing homework every day,” Josie says with a sweet but teasing smile. It's not a lie entirely, but it's also not the whole truth.
“Totally!” her sister exclaims. “I, for one, can’t wait until we get to come back,” Lizzie says with the grin back on her face.
"Well I'm glad you girls enjoyed it," their dad says with a chuckle. "And if you keep up the good work in school," he says with a pointed look at them before sharing a teasing one with Caroline. "I don't see why we couldn't come back soon, maybe for a long weekend?"
"Really!?" The twins squealed at the same time.
"Sure," Caroline says while laughing at their synchronized eagerness. "But we really have to see it, girls. You've done really well so far this semester; you just have to keep it up."
"We promise!" They say at the same time causing their parents to laugh again.
They finished their breakfast and decided to just go into town and play it by ear but to keep it simple given that they still had to pack. She managed to stay in the conversation but the worries were still in the back of her mind. By the time they made it back home in the afternoon she had successfully avoided the concerned looks from her mother and the curious ones from her sister.
