Straighter than Parallel Parking

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GUYS. I got 30K WORDS. THIRTY THOUSAND WORDS! CAN I GET A WHAT?!

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{ Chapter Three: Sometimes You Need Little Pink Hearts }

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JANICE DIDN'T GET A SINGLE WINK OF SLEEP THE ENTIRE NIGHT. With the insults of her Aunt (burned casserole and being jobless weren't the best impression), accompanied with the stress of what exactly she was supposed to do about her "tomboyish phase", there were also the baby cries.

Wails that didn't seem to just ricochet of the walls, but penetrate through them, even five doors and a floor apart, where Janice lay raccoon eyed in the basement of her room.

It doesn't help that she's a light sleeper, while her brothers probably could sleep through gun shots and bomb explosions.

God, it was like having Rebecca Black on a stereo with full volume.

At one point, probably around seven in the morning, the sobs ceased, along with the pounding in her head, the silence enough to evince her relief.

Even though she wasn't a big fan of mornings, she decided it might as well scroll through the options of becoming more... "feminine".

Even the word sounded wrong on the tip of her tongue. Picturing herself in frills and tutus, Janice shudders, pulling her nighttime robe closer to her body, her feet padding the ground beneath her as she walks up the stairs to prepare herself breakfast.

Maybe brazen, unburned pancakes can make her seem matrimonial, or whatever the hell a "woman" was supposed to do.

Do I need to smell like flowers and grow out my hair to my ankles? she wonders as she begins mixing the batter. That doesn't sound feminine, that makes me sound hippie.

She brought herself to touch the cropped auburn hair that went just a little past ears, wondering if she could even manage if it were that long, especially since it was thick and healthy, even though she dyed it a couple times before it turned this colour.

Losing herself in her cooking, she hums the tune of Bridges by Broods, autopilot taking control of her body as she cracks eggs and sizzles turkey bacon (pork just made her queasy).

She then went on to setting the table with silverware and making sure she didn't miss any extra chocolate chips for Aàron, since he loved them most.

Cooking was her solace, and the only thing that could calm her down like a hug.

Soon, the sounds of rustling takes place of people waking up to partake in the noise of her clashing pots and pans, and it's not long before she see's blatantly exhausted Karlo clamber down the stairs, hair sticking up in enough ways that made bird nests look gorgeous.

Janice just laughs at his bed hair and battered Diego pajama's. "How old are you, four?"

"Don't diss mi amigo, okay," he shoots back, rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes, his hazel eyes widening once he see's the spread in front of him. "Whoa, when did you get the time to do this? How long did this take? It's like a buffet!"

She shrugs, going to back to flip the last pancake of the batch. "Cakes made in a pan aren't that hard to do, you know."

"You don't do things this elaborate unless something's on your mind," Karlo says, sliding into a wooden chair of the dining table, already preparing his meal once Janice left the bottle of amber maple syrup down.