A thousand nights

XVI

On the early evening of January the third, a gang of kids assaulted me. Well, to be more precise, it was one kid and her older sister.

I was savouring a bowl of steaming milk and cereals when my routine was interrupted by the obnoxious knocking on my front door. I debated ignoring it; surely Lauren knew that dad wasn't home, and the mailman wouldn't come this late. However, whoever was behind the door persisted with the knocking, which left me little to question on how to proceed. Upon opening the door, I barely had a glimpse of Hamlin's brown curls before she squeezed me in a hug. It took me longer than it should've to unfreeze from the shock and hug her back. From the corner of my eye, I could see Ali imitating her sister, the little one could only reach my legs, so she settled for wrapping her arms around them tightly.

'I felt like I haven't seen you in so long!' her voice came out muffled.

'Yeah' I tried to say hoping she would release me from the hug, 'the sentiment is mutual'

She finally realized that I wasn't comfortable with all this ''touching''. She let go of me, but nonetheless kept beaming up at me.

'Park! Park!' Ali said excitedly, raising both of her hands up, waiting for me to pick her up. I lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around my torso, immediately she started asking me about my holidays.

'Didn't do much Ali' I gestured Hamlin to come in. Once in the kitchen, I put Ali on my lap and resumed eating.

'Will you ever stop eating cornflakes for dinner? ' Hamlin shook her head with a smile.

'Nope' I said in a mouthful.

'I like coco pops better' Ali said 'it tastes like chocolate'

'Eww, how could you ever eat that!?' I said faking disgust. Alisha pinched my arm and I groaned in exaggerated pain as she started giggling.

'So, how are things going?' Hamlin asked, taking a seat across from me.

'The usual, dad went on a date with Lauren for New Year's Eve, he screwed up, made me breakfast and his back at work now'

'My dad wanted to come to see you all but has to unpack and prepare dinner, he said' She rolled her eyes.

'I see' I finished my cornflakes ' So how is the fam?'

She sighed 'our relatives are numbingly boring, the only good thing about this holiday was seeing my mom again' I smiled at Hamlin, imagining how it would be like to have family over for the holidays. For as long as I could remember, it had always been dad and me.

'What about you, Ali?' I looked at her 'Did you have fun?'

'A little' she lowered her gaze 'my friends made fun of me because they say I talk funny' It was true. That was something I had started noticing, she had definitely started speaking like a Brit.

'I talk funny too, so don't feel like you're alone, alright kiddo?' She put her tiny arms around my neck and nodded on my chest. It didn't matter how many times I held little Alisha, I always felt that weird warmth at seeing my eyes reflected in her big, doe-like brown eyes as if I won the ultimate jackpot every time I made her laugh.

'How's Jake?' I looked at Hamlin.

Her smile's curdled into a grimace. It looked like talking about her brother brought to her a bitter taste in her mouth.

'Breathing as far as I am concerned' she sighed.

'Huh?'

' I don't know what's happened to him but since he got close to Aaron and the others he's changed' she looked down at her hands 'he does things that I would have never imagined him doing, ever' she eyed Ali as if to tell me that she couldn't say anything else in front of her.