new beginnings

Broken Promises

I woke up to the usual average morning, at the same time, right as the sun came up.

Except a few things were different.

Instead of Ron, Jordan was laying beside me. Also, I was in a different room in a different bed.

I immediately sat up, hoping that Ron wasn't up before me. I shook Jordan awake and she sat up.

"What? What?" She said in a rushed whisper.

"Help me to Ron's room. I need to get in the bed." I said quietly.

She rolled out of the tiny bed, shoved my clothes underneath it and threw on her t-shirt. She helped me out of bed and I leaned against her all the way to Ron's bed, who was luckily sleeping. I helped myself on it and she quickly got out of the room and closed the door. I breathed a sigh of relief and faked sleep for a few minutes, wrapping my arms around Ron. He woke up a little while later since we wake up at about the same time everyday.

He opened his eyes and caressed my face, so then I opened mine. "Morning." He smiled.

And there the morning went on, I took a quick shower, Ron had my clothes laid out on the bed and got myself dressed, then went downstairs for breakfast. Jordan was down there, dressed in her varsity jacket. Her hair was more straight than I have seen it.

"Good morning." I said to Jordan with a look that said 'we got away with it'. She gave me a smirk back.

We sat down at the table and poured ourselves some applesauce out of the jar into our bowls.

"Don't get me wrong, I love applesauce, but we need to find something else to eat." Jordan said.

"I was just thinking that." I said. "We'll figure out something later, but for now we'll eat this."

We were done and then went outside, just like every other day. Sat down on the porch, Ron on the far left, me in the middle, and Jordan on my right. I felt my stomach tighten when Dad walked up to the porch. 

"Morning." I said. His eyes darted away from mine. He looked very uncomfortable, and so did I.

"Morning, son. I have to go out on a run in a couple hours. Um... do you want to go?" Dad's eyes fell to my leg.

"I wouldn't be any use. I'll stay here. How long is this trip?" I asked.

"Really long, one week. This'll be a big one." He tugged on his belt, which I'm now noticing that he does a lot.

"Ron? Jordan?" He said.

"How many people do you need?" Ron asked.

"We're kind of short-handed this time. We'll need a lot of people to look for things and carry stuff. Carl used to be an excellent helper... before uh... y'know." Dad looked at my leg again. I felt kind of sad, since I've been feeling unhelpful lately.

"...If that's the case, I wouldn't mind helping out." Ron smiled at Dad, who smiled back.

"Well, uh, Jordan... stay here and make sure Carl's staying out of trouble? It sounds like he's being treated like a baby, but I know how freely he throws around 'I'm fine'." He chuckled a little.

"Sure, I've seen him fall plenty of times." She laughed a little.

"Alright then. Stay over at Sarah's house while we're gone." Dad politely half-smiled and walked away.

"Carl, can I talk to you?" Ron asked. He got up and nodded toward the front door. I got up and followed him inside. He closed the door.

"I have to get something straight with you. If I go, don't do anything with Jordan. I can't lose you. So please, please don't." He said and held one of my hands.