Forever Yours

Chapter 4

Song: Birthday Cake - Dylan Conrique

Day 4
   

When I wake up in the morning I immediately wish I hadn't. Before I barely even get the chance to turn my alarm off Lucas is storming into my room. Nice of you to knock. "Why is your alarm waking up the entire house?"
    "Nope think that was you busting the door down to come yell at me," I respond with a roll of my eyes. That gets me slapped across the face.
    "Why is your alarm so loud?!" he's yelling at this point.
    "Will you please quiet down a little bit? The kids are going to wake up and I have a job interview to get to," I'm doing everything I can to get him to calm down. If he wakes up Evelyn and Henry I'll end up being late for my interview and I need to get home in time to get Henry to his therapy appointment. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with Evelyn, I need to see if there's any way we can move the appointments to video chat.
    I'd cancel but I know it'd be good for him to go. Thank God the insurance completely covers his therapy and legally Lucas and Charlotte have to pay for our insurance otherwise we'd be screwed.
    "It's my house, I'll yell if I feel like yelling," he's at least quieted down somewhat. Talking too loud seems to physically hurt him.
    "Are you hungover?" I didn't even mean to say that outloud, so much for trying to smooth out the situation.
    "Yeah, what's it to you?" he practically spits in my face.
    Nothing just that the two people who loved you the most were just put six feet under and you were out drinking with your friends. "Nothing just wanted to make sure I didn't make it worse somehow," I say with a sarcastic smile.
    He just grumbles out a "Whatever, I'm going back to bed. If your alarm wakes me up again I'm throwing it out the window."
    Dumbass. Can't even tell I'm being sarcastic, I swear to God. Plus, my alarm's on my phone and if he throws my phone out the window he won't be able to call me to complain about stupid crap. Wouldn't want that to happen.
    I go to get up so I can get ready when Evelyn walks through the door with her blanket. Damnit. "Amelia? Can I lay in here?"
    "Yeah, but I have to go somewhere for a little bit. Is that okay?" I sound annoyed. Crap, it's not her fault.
    "Yeah, when will you be back?" she responds. I don't think she caught the slight annoyance in my voice.
    "I shouldn't be too long. If it goes well we can make cookies when I get back okay?"
    Her eyes light up, "Okay, can you tuck me in?"
    I go over and cover her with the comforter then her blanket with a kiss on her forehead. "Love you Ev," I say quietly.
    "Love you too," she whispers back with a yawn while I grab my clothes and make my way to the bathroom.
    While I'm getting dressed I think about how her eyes still light up like they should and how sure I am that she'll be okay. Our parents' death didn't affect her like it did me. I know my parents are looking down on her smiling. She's resilient, she'll move on and grow up. I, on the other hand, feel stuck, like I'm going to be in the same spot forever. At least I know for sure that Evelyn will be alright, and Henry will too. At some point he'll move on as well and it'll be just like my parents wanted.
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    I finished getting ready and decide to walk. It's a fifteen minute walk and I still have over a half hour until I need to be there. Plus, I'll have a way better interview if I don't have a panic attack beforehand.
    After my interview they told me I'm the only one that's gotten an interview and probably the best candidate for the job but they'd let me know. That sounded promising so I told Evelyn we could make cookies after Henry's appointment.
    I dropped him off after I asked him if he wanted me to stay but he promised me it's easier if he goes in by himself. So, I changed his appointments to online and went to the store to get stuff for Evelyn's cookies.
    "Can I get this?" she asks, holding up a package of Oreo's.
    "No silly, we're making cookies," I answer, showing her the chocolate chips.
    "Oh yeah I forgot," she giggles.
    Just then, my phone starts ringing. After fishing it out of my purse, I confirm that it's Lucas. Just great, I think to myself.
I answer it, "Hello?"
    "Where are you?"
    "The store," I'm trying not to lose my patience in front of Evelyn.
    "Why?" Like it's any of his business.
    "Henry had an appointment so I took Evelyn to the store because she wanted to make cookies."
    "You better clean up your damn mess," oh yeah like you do. Not like I'm constantly cleaning up after you or anything.
    "We will," my patience hanging on by an actual thread. He hangs up before I can even finish my sentence. Usually it'd tick me off but I wanted the conversation to end so badly that I'm just relieved. Why does he have to call me just to be a complete jerk. He doesn't give a damn about any of us.
    "Who was that?" Evelyn questions me.
    "Uncle Lucas," I tell her. I want to do everything in my power to make sure the kids don't realize how bad he really is. But, Henry's so inquisitive and smart I'm afraid he's going to catch on soon. Thankfully, she just nods her head and moves on.
    We need groceries at the house and I know nobody else will do it so I do some grocery shopping while we're at the store. I don't get too much because Henry's therapist's office is just in town and it was a nice day out so we decided to walk.
    We're going to pick Henry up and I can practically feel the excitement radiating off of Evelyn. I'm glad she's happy. I know she feels awful about our parents but I also know that she's going to be okay and she still feels excitement and joy over little things like someone her age should. I really am very proud of her.
    After we pick up Henry and start heading home Evelyn starts talking about the cookies we're going to make and all the ingredients we picked up at the store. And she. Does. Not. Stop. By the time we get home she's practically bouncing off the walls. I'm glad Lucas isn't home because I have a strong feeling he would just scream at her. I knew Charlotte wouldn't be home, she's rarely ever home.
    Evelyn immediately starts for the pantry and cupboards since I told her we have to put the groceries away before we start. "Where do I put this?"
    "What about this?"
    "Can you help me put this up there?"
    Question after question after question spills out of Evelyn and I'm so happy she's smiling I can't find it in me to be annoyed. After everything's put away, save for the stuff we need for the cookies, Evelyn practically sprints to Henry's room to ask him if he wanted to help us. He tells her not right now, much to her disappointment but I tell her we'll have fun either way.
    I knew he probably wouldn't want to help especially after he had therapy. He always goes off by himself after an appointment and I know it has to be exhausting but he always feels better afterwards.
    We get started on the cookies and when Evelyn goes to put the flour in the bowl she misses it and it somehow ends up all over me. I give her a playful gasp before grabbing her and I start to tickle her stomach.
    "No please Amelia I'm sorry it was an accident," she lets out between bits of laughter.
    "Well in that case I'm sorry too," I respond after letting her go.
    "How come?"
    "Because this is an accident too," I take a handful of flour and throw it at her after she lets out a surprised gasp. She starts running away and I grab more flour. I realize this is cliche but we really are having the time of our lives, just throwing flour at each other. Evelyn just threw another handful at me as Henry walks out of his room to see what's going on.
    "What-" he gets out before I take some flour out of the bag Evelyn's holding and throw it at his face. He doesn't say a word as he grabs the bag from Evelyn and starts chasing me. I look behind me and he's gaining on me while Evelyn's giggling in the corner. Everything just kind of melts away for a while and my head's still loud but it's like Henry and Evelyn's laughs and screams drown out my thoughts.
    It's not necessarily calming but it's a different kind of chaos that doesn't hurt.
    When we finally do get the cookies in the oven they ask me about a hundred different times if they're done yet. Finally I just tell them, "If they were done yet I would've taken them out of the oven by now," that's when the sound of the timer breaks through the air and I kid you not Evelyn jumps out of her seat and runs to the kitchen.
    I take the cookies out of the oven and make them wait before eating them because 1. I don't want them to get burned and 2. They're too soft to take off the pan right now anyways. But when I do finally let them try one they claim that they're the best cookies in the whole world and I roll my eyes and give them a tentative smile.
    I'm thinking about how glad I am that we made the cookies together when I hear a car door slam shut and my blood runs cold. "Hey why don't you guys take some cookies up to my room and turn on a movie while I clean up this mess, I'll join you in just a few minutes," I rush out.
    I'm pretty sure Henry senses my urgency because he rushes Evelyn out of the kitchen and up the stairs without being too obvious about it. I breathe out a sigh of relief when they make it up the stairs before Lucas makes it through the door. I already know as soon as he walks into the kitchen and sees the mess from the flour we threw at each other he's going to start screaming and the kids don't need to be around that right now.
     "What the heck did you do to my kitchen?!" aaaand he's already yelling, fantastic.
    "I'm going to clean it up right now, we talked about this this morning. Can you not scream like that when Evelyn and Henry are home they don't need to know how horrible you really are," I whisper yell.
    "Oh really, I'm really so freaking horrible. I brought you guys in, I pay for your food, I give you a bed to sleep in, and everything else you need just for you to sit here and be an ungrateful brat!" so much for my one request of not letting the kids know what's going on. I'm pretty sure the whole town knows what's going on with how loud he's screaming. Maybe the windows will shatter and he'll be able to blame me for something else.
    "You only did that so you could keep up appearances with the public. We wouldn't want people to see your real personality, then they would know how fake you truly are."
    "You're lucky I don't kick you out of my house, why are you so selfish," at least he's quieted down now.
    "Oh yes, how incredibly self-centered of me to call you out on your shit," my annoyance is starting to peek through and he can tell. I know because he's smirking now. He thinks he's going to get me to blow up and just walk away.
    "You making random crap up doesn't mean you're calling me out of my so-called "shit" Amelia." I don't even know what he's talking about right now. I'm thoroughly confused.
    "You and I both know I'm not making anything up, you just can't come up with a better comeback and your ego took a hit," I force my tone to stay dry but it doesn't seem to matter anyway when he stomps away in the middle of my sentence because his feelings are hurt and he's not used to somebody defying him. I'm filled with satisfaction knowing I won, at least for right now, as I start cleaning the kitchen.
                                               

I wish my siblings acted like that towards me, gosh. Yesterday my brother was chasing me with a knife, not a bag of flour.
This chapter was extremely cliche but I kind of love it. To be honest this entire book is going to be cliche so if you don't like cliche's I suggest stop reading right now lol.
I love cliche's though so I hope you don't mind ❤️

Word Count: 2,184