With Love, Silvia. [✔️]

Chapter 4 Welcome Home

I ran up to her and gave her a big hug. She might not have been around me much, but we had the best of times when she was here.

"My little Silvey! You've grown up so much!" Erica said squeezing me.

As soon as she said that, memories flooded back. Erica used to babysit me and call me her little Silvey. Erica taught me how to make flower crowns, draw pictures of horses, and read books. I also remember being heartbroken when she had to move away.

"Erica!" I said breaking away from our hug and grabbing my suitcase.

"I can't wait to show you around Hollow Springs, it's so lovely here, especially in the fall time." She said.

"Is that all your luggage?" She asked giving me a strange look.

"Um, yea. I have some money to buy more clothes and stuff." I said playing around with the zipper on Mom's jacket.

Erica noticed me doing that and said,

"Say, isn't that your mother's jacket? I mailed that out to her on her 30th birthday." Erica said looking over the jacket.

"It is... It's sorta like a piece of her that I want to keep with me." I said noticing that my half happy mood had instantly blown away.

"It looks nice on you." Erica said sensing my sadness.

"Thanks..." I muttered at followed her through the almost empty terminal.

We got out to the parking lot and Erica lead me to a deep blue minivan. Since she had left New York, she had 2 kids which are now probably 9 or 10 by now. And through social media I also found she had 2 toddlers, so a minivan would only be fitting.

Erica unlocked the car and I pulled open the passenger seat door. The back of the van had Cheerios and broken crayons spilled across the floor, and a little picture book sat on one of booster seats behind us.

"Gosh, this thing is a mess. Sorry about that..." Erica said putting her key in and starting up the car.

I looked out the window having that numbing feeling I did when Joe took me to the airport. I fiddled with the gold zipper some more, zipping it up and down. We rode in silence listening to the faint music of the Winnie the Pooh soundtrack CD that was in the CD player. We finally arrived at Erica's house which was painted white, and had a little white picket fence.  

Her toddler aged kids sat in the grassy front yard, one playing with a toy tractor, and the other one scribbling on the sidewalk with chalk. The one with the truck stopped and yelled,

"MOMMY'S HOOOOMMMMEEE!" He scurried up to the side of the van with the little girl playing with the chalk.

"Why hello kids." Erica said climbing out of the van.

I got out too and was greeted by the little girl.

"My name is Emily." She said. She had chalk dust all over her shirt.

"Hi Emily, I'm Silvia." I said awkwardly. I was never good with little kids.

"I know. Mommy told us about you." She said matter-of-factly.

Erica came around the corner with the little boy in her arms.

"This is Owen." She said to me, as Owen waved a tiny hand at me.

"Hey Owen." I said going through another awkward phase unsure what to do next.

"Well, let's go inside and you can meet my other two kids." Erica said leading us all into the house.

It was big and roomy. It had a nice family room that had lots of toys and other things scattered everywhere. It would take time to get used to living with non-neat freaks!

An older girl was sitting on the couch in the family room reading my favorite book, Paper Towns.

"Emma, please get your head out of that book and say hello to Silvia." Erica said taking the book out of her hands.

Emma looked up at me and smiled.

"Hey, I'm Emma." She said and looked at her mom that said, please give me my book back. So her mother reluctantly handed it back to her and she buried herself inside of it once again.

"I'm going to get Rodger, make yourself comfortable." Erica said heading upstairs.

I sat down on the couch beside Emma and mustering out a lot of bravery I said,

"That book is really good; one of my favorites." I said expecting her not to respond. I knew when I read a good book I was annoyed when people tried to talk to me.

"Mine too. This is my third time reading it actually." Emma said shutting her book.

"Wow. Have you seen the movie?" I asked surprising myself. This was the first time I had really engaged in a conversation in a while.

"Yes, but I like the book a lot better." She said twisting the bracelet she was wearing around her wrist.

A boy that looked a little older than Emma stomped downstairs.

"That's Rodger. He's grumpy 99.999999 percent of the time..." Emma said to me.

"Don't even try to talk to him or you could risk getting punched in the mouth." She whispered.

"MOM I ALREADY TOLD YOU I DON'T WANT THIS GIRL HERE." He screamed.

"I'll show you to my room. It's bigger than the other's so I volunteered to share it with you. We don't exactly have a bed for your right now, but we have an inflatable mattress I hope you don't mind..." Emma said walking upstairs.

I followed behind her. Emma reminded me of Erica, she was very nice and made me feel welcome even with Rodger's clear resentment towards me. The wall by the staircase was filled with pictures of Erica's kids. Catching fish, dancing, in front of the Christmas tree, I guess you could say there were a lot of pictures.

Emma climbed the last step and showed me inside her room. She was right, It was big. Her walls were painted light pink, and she had butterfly decals stuck the wall above her bed. She also had the biggest window with a window seat ever. Her room was awesome!

"Here we are." She said smiling.

"This is sooo cool." I said looking around some more. My eyes landed on my inflatable bed which was decorated with a comforter and some decorative pillows.

"I tried to make your bed look nice, me and mom went shopping for a special bed set. I hope you like it." Emma said sitting on her own bed.

"Oh it's perfect!" I said flopping onto mine.

I immediately knew that this place could definitely be my second home.