Blue Skies and Past Lies

Chapter 5

Staring at her phone, her mind filled with apprehension and dread and her stomach began to feel queasy, Annie gently sat her phone on her quilt covered lap. Why after such a long time would her sister Carrie be calling her now? Thinking of her sister, who is five years older than her 26 year old self, she couldn't come up with any reason for her to call her. After eight years of no communication between the siblings what so ever, what had happened for Carrie Lee Garter to call out of the blue to someone whom she vowed to never speak to again? Thoroughly flustered, she look over at the clock and saw the blaring analog numbers displaying 10:45. She knew she wouldn't be getting to sleep anytime soon.

Flipping the covers back, Annie shuffled over to her desk, sat in her old discount office chair that had seen better days, and opened her scratched up Sony Vaio. Typing in her password she opened the Facebook shortcut and logged into her account. Moving the mouse to the search bar, she hesitated slightly before typing in the name of the only family she had left.

Carrie Garter......

Scrolling down her timeline a little, the last post her sister had made was a picture of her sister and her husband, and some friends of Carrie's she recognized. They were at some steakhouse called Stevie's Steaks and Spuds...... classy, Annie snorted. Annie read the text above the picture and saw that they were there celebrating Carrie's husband Josh Garter's 33rd birthday. All of them were smiling and having a great time and if this post were correct it was only yesterday that this took place. So why the heck would Carrie call? Had something happened to initiate this unexpected event?

Continuing on down her sister's timeline she read all the posts and looked at all the pictures. She had done this before, stalked her own sister's profile. Only when she grew curious of what her only remaining blood relative was up to, which wasn't that often. She knew that nowhere on her sister's page did she ever mention her having a sister. The only evidence that Annie Claire Hannagan had ever existed in Claire Garter's world was an old photo of the three of them. Claire, Annie, and their grandmother. And it wasn't even a recent photo, it was when Annie was nine years old and they were at the town's annual 4th of July Celebration Extravaganza. Even then, the photo was old and blurry and Annie was standing off to the side with her head turned the other way, distracted by the local fire department dressed up as clowns and making balloon animals for the kids. Having endured enough self-inflected stress, Annie logged out of her account and pushed the lid down.

Walking back towards her bed, she climbed in and switched off her table side lamp. She brought the covers over her head, curled up in a ball, and prayed that she could just have peace and not dream of a specific ruggedly handsome cowboy how held her heart and then let it drop to floor to bust into a million pieces.

**********

Waking up to her alarm clock buzzing, reminiscent of a hockey goal horn, she slapped the off button and headed to her medium sized light grey wardrobe. After sleeping for around what she figured to be four or less hours, Annie grabbed out a long sleeved henley and a pair of baggy sweatpants. Because nothing says totally productive adult like baggy comfort clothes on a Sunday. Sluggishly making her way to the bathroom she took a long well deserved shower and got dress in her lazy clothes. She finished her look off with a pony because those cute sloppy buns were too difficult for her to master.

Once in the kitchen, she knew she would kill for a stack of delicious golden pancakes slathered with peanut butter and drowned in syrup. But since Tanya was still with her boyfriend for the weekend, she disgruntledly accepted that she would have to settle for a bowl of cold artificial goodness. With a bowl of cereal in one hand and her required daily cup of coffee in the other, Annie headed towards the red and grey tweed couch that Tanya and Annie had bought together off of Craigslist. It was a little lumpy and there was a mysterious stain on the other side of the cushion, but it was cheap and held up through the test of time.

Halfway through her Sunday ritual of morning cartoons, she heard a ringing coming from the pocket of her black sweatpants. Choking down the remnants of her Fruit Loops, apprehension filled her and goose bumps covered her body. Remembering last nights unexpected caller, Annie slowly checked the screen on her phone......

'Tanya'

"Oh thank you lord" she quietly exhaled. Swiping the green phone symbol, she put the phone to her ear and was about to say hello when Tanya's loud and accusing voiced streamed through the phone.

"Why does Parker know about a man who flirted with you and you flirted back with before me?"

Annie scrunched her face and asked " How do you know about that?" sighing, she quickly figured out the answer before Tanya could respond "Parker told you already?"

"Yes and that's not the point. What I want to know is why that little demon spawn from hell knows about my best friend's potential love interest before me?" Tanya demanded.

"Well, he barged in yesterday and demanded that I go on a blind date he set up so I told him about Isaac."

"That little weasel" Tanya huffed, " God, remember that triple date from hell when he brought that guy for you? What was his name? Mike? Mitchem? Miguel? Oh who cares. Jesus that was horrendously funny. The guy was wearing a paisley suit jacket and had a pony tail down to his ass crack. I still can't believe he gave you a dead bug in a piece of glass and caressed your nose. Grade A creep if you ask me."

Annie let out a little laugh and tried to defend him a some, "he wasn't that bad, it was kind of sweet."

"Yeah if your into dead bugs and guys who probably wear their victim's skin"

" Geeze Tanya, gross."

Tanya laughed loudly, "Well it's probably true." she paused "..... so about this Isaac guy?"

"Yes?" Annie replied cautiously. Knowing her friend, she was about to ask something completely serious or completely inappropriate.

"How big is his dick?"

Yep, that's Tanya. Completely inappropriate.

Woo-woooo,  all aboard the productive express! Next stop hell yeah platform. I've written three chapters in a span of a day and I feel like I've gotten out of my creativity slump. There are bound to be a plethora of grammatical errors, but I don't care. I'm excited and no Debbie downer or negative neil is going to kill my vibe. That's right, kill my vibe. Look it up on google. Kendrick Lamar's 'Bitch Don't Kill my vibe' will probably show up first, but it's a phrase like "Don't harsh my mellow". I'm done ranting now.