warmth {complete}

1||something so magic about you

Mom presses a kiss to my hair as she swishes past me into the kitchen. All five of my siblings are in there, arguing or complaining. Stephanie is the oldest after me, sixteen and bitter; then Joseph, Becca, Samuel--Mom's favorite--and Dana. Becca is sitting on the counter, skinny legs hitting the wooden cabinets until our mother places a hand on her knee to stop her.

"I'm going out," Steph announces, dragging her pale pianist's hands through thick dark hair. She and I are polar opposites, despite being only a year and a half apart, but we both inherited our father's chalk white skin.

"Where are you going, baby?" Mom asks wearily, staring at her. Steph shrugs and tucks her phone into her jeans.

"Don't worry about it, Mama," she replies before turning and walking away. At the sound of our alarm system's familiar ding, signalling the door has been opened and closed, Mom drops her head into her hands. Tentatively I pat her head and scrounge up a smile. She doesn't need to worry about all six of us at the same time, so I've been trying my damn best for the past eighteen years to be little to no trouble.

"What did you need, sweetheart?" she asks, sitting up and offering me a tired smile. I just shake my head, because initially I'd come down to ask her what she thinks about me applying for a gap year, but I just now changed my mind. Too much right now.

"Don't worry about it." Her face morphs into guilt because she knows I'm repressing things, but I turn on my heel and jog up the stairs before she can sink completely. Turns out Stephanie and I aren't that different.

***

I lay on my side, FaceTiming Arden--my closest, sweetest friend--as she organizes her art cabinet. She's explaining her divorced parents' newest settlement to me, and I'm sort of listening but mostly watching her color code her oil paints.

"So how's the gap year talk coming?" she inquires, jarring me out of my trance.

"Hmm? Oh, haven't gotten around to that yet, my mother is a busy woman," I reply passively, turning onto my back and dropping my phone onto my mattress. Arden scoffs and I see her rosy face get up close to the camera from the corner of my eye.

"So? This is your future, babe, and if I have to listen to you rant about your endless gap-year research for one more day, I will punch myself in the face."

"That seems excessive, and just for that, I'm gonna text you some graphs about the correlation between IQ and gap years," I sniff, sitting up and reaching for my phone again.

"That's super rude. I'm blocking you."

I beam down at her through the camera, hopefully my love is translating. Arden moved to California when we were in eighth grade, leaving me all by myself in Virginia, but we've managed to keep up with our communication schedule for the past four years. Still, I haven't quite managed to make new friends, on account of my constant desire to be alone or with Arden. I had one boyfriend in sophomore year, but he put his hand on my thigh one time and I haven't seen him since.

"Hey, I'm tired," I tell Arden, sitting up to look into the camera again. She rolls her wide blue eyes and scowls at me. Through the camera, she stands and pulls her loose summer shorts down to their appropriate length. Arden is curvy and received a lot of rudeness from our friends when we were in eighth grade, but now she walks with confidence and wears tank tops even though her arms are plumper than they were in eighth grade. All in all, she's my role model and basically the love of my life.

"Bye, baby, text me if you need me, okay?" she says, brows furrowing until I nod and smile at her. She hangs up, and I turn on my side to throw my arm over my eyes.