Starting Over Anderson || ✔

Twenty-eight: Jenna Hugs Day

*** proceed with caution (which really means chapter unedited) ***

I see them - Mr and Mrs Baxter, Erin and Isaac, Chad and Chris, and also Keith, the only one who is standing awkwardly around the noisy lot. He hasn't changed one bit, his brown hair still unruly and sticking up in every direction. It is only then that I feel the hole in my chest where he should have been. We were supposed to be diaper friends.

I tell Aaron that I want to see them one by one, starting with Mr and Mrs Baxter. He nods, understanding, and goes out to get them. Mrs Baxter wraps me in her famous suffocating hugs before I can even assess her, and fusses over me as the last trace of worry leaves Mr Baxter's eyes. He hugs me, too, after his wife is done, and warns me not to climb any trees. I cringe in horror at that. Seems like my reputation is forever doomed.

I ask for Chad next, telling him to take good care of Chris in my absence (seeing as how I'll be confined to my hospital ward for the next few weeks or so) and he chuckles in response, making me promise to let him be the best man at our wedding, which I dismissed with my cheeks flushed. Chad is in the middle of making fun of me when his other siblings barge in, Erin knocking the wind out of me just like her mother did a few minutes ago.

Chad leaves then, laughing heartily. The twins proceed to fire a hundred questions at me, almost shrieking over one another at the same time. Oh how I miss them.

"I'm not answering all these questions," I deadpan. " I can't even understand a word you've been saying."

"Jerk," Erin pouts.

"Besides, I thought I mentioned specifically, one at a time?" I raise an eyebrow, a ghost of a smile on my lips. I can never seem to sustain a serious facade with them for long.

"Erin and I literally came from the same zygote, so we count as one," Isaac shrugs matter-of-factly.

I roll my eyes, a full blown smile lighting up my face as Erin makes a gagging noise, "that sounds so wrong, bro. So wrong."

We quickly move on to other things, like school and our friends back there, and the teachers. The Spring Dance was very springy, for there isn't any other way to describe it. The gym was decorated with flowers and flowers and flowers. In fact, walking into the school feels like walking into a spring meadow. That's all according to the twins, of course. Though I suspect Noah has a huge hand in supplying the bouquets.

"Speaking of," Isaac cuts in suddenly when Erin is animatedly relaying Emily's latest date with Harry, in all its glorious details. Somehow, I've always known that they'd end up with each other. They bring out the competitive spirit in each other, and everyone knows how competitive is sexy. "Erin here has been a naughty little thing," Isaac wriggles his eyebrows suggestively.

"Uh oh." Erin shuffles her weight from foot to foot uncomfortably.

I smirk, liking to see her squirm. "What has she done now?"

"More like, what did she not do," Isaac looks like he absolutely enjoys this. "Erin didn't tell us that she has been hooking up with a secret someone."

I burst out laughing, earning a glare from a passing nurse outside. That would explain the "project" nights and all those nights of shutting herself in her room. "Who is it?" I'm dying to know.

"Jake or Josh, I can't tell," Isaac says, still smirking. "I can't tell. Or maybe Jake and Josh." Erin smacks the upside of his head and he yells. I laugh again.

"It's Josh, you blind doofus. I can't believe you're so stupid that you can't tell them apart," she humphs.

"Maybe 'cause I'm not screwing them." That earns another smack. I laughing like a hyena at their entertainment. "Okay, you can cut the violence now. No more offending sentences, I swear," Isaac finally holds up his arms in surrender.