~~Young~~

Chapter Eight

   Sera woke to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and buttered toast, seemingly coming from right beneath her nose. It may not have been the worst way she had woken up, but when sleep itself had only come to you oh…about an hour and a half ago, it was far from pleasant.

   She eyed the travel mug on her nightstand with disdain from her bed even as she reached out for a piece of toast perched atop the cup.

   Oh, cinnamon sugar toast, she noticed as she flopped back against her pillow and munched on it, guess that meant Chels wasn’t letting last night’s events get to her. Unlike herself…

   …who wasn’t going to go there right now.

   If Chelsea was in a mood of any sort then not only would there be no spices on her toast, there would most likely be no toast at all. Not that she should be up yet anyway. It was a little after four in the morning and the only reason Sera was up was so she could catch her cab into Kamloops. Her ticket was for the seven o’ five train, and with over a two hour drive from the campus to the station she had to get an early start or risk missing it.

   Chels on the other hand didn’t have any classes till eleven, and though she well and truly was an early bird- getting up for her morning run at six every day of the week- this was pushing it for her. But, of course, she wasn’t up for herself. She had woken up two hours early to make sure Sera got up…if she had gone to bed at all.

   Dragging herself out from under her covers she confirmed that as a big no, as in Chels hadn’t yet made it to bed. Her outfit from the party was still lying across the end of her bed, her bed still perfectly made- not remade- and her neon green eye mask was still hanging on her headboard. Versus where it usually was in the early AM hours, on Chels’s head…where she had been known to leave it even while jogging having forgotten it was there.

   With a sigh Sera shook her head and contemplated her toast after taking another bite. Really, she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She had set her alarm clock- which Chels had apparently already turned off- last night and everything. But Chelsea insisted on helping her…even when she didn’t ask for it. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate her efforts, she really did and she told her that all the time but…but to her it made her feel like she couldn’t take care of herself. Or at least that Chels didn’t think she could.

   For as long as she could remember Chels had picked up the slack for her, doing their laundry, cleaning their room, doing their shopping. Sera never did anything for them, not besides make more work for Chelsea. Or trouble, dragging her down with her when things went bad-

   Not thinking about that right now, she scolded herself.

   Looking down to the pile of clothes at her feet she decided now was as good a time as ever to start showing Chelsea that she not only wasn’t a total lost cause, but that she could do things for them too.

   She stuffed the toast in between her teeth and picked up every spare piece of cloth off the hardwood floor- no surprise there, but it was almost exclusively hers- and made for the bathroom where the hampers were. Hampers and not hamper. Chels had three baskets in there, lights, darks and dry cleaning.

   Shit, she thought with a frown, what couldn’t get washed in the laundry?

   She dropped the load to the tile floor and sat beside it, taking a bite of her toast and then balancing it on the edge of the pedestal sink. Piece by piece she checked every tag. Some were easier than others to figure out, some specifically reading dry clean only or at least dry clean recommended.