Transformed || l.h.

Chapter Eight

Feeling the side of her bed dip down, Georgia yawns, rubbing her eyes. “Dad?” she mumbles in a voice gruff from sleep. She hears a chuckle from a throat just a few inches away that doesn’t sound like her father, although slightly similar. “James?” Georgia corrects herself, finally cracking open her eyelids to look at the figure sat on the bed. “Mhmm,” her brother responds, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. “C’mon, put on some shoes and brush your teeth.” Georgia sits up, “Wh-what are you talking about?” James stands up and turns on her little lamp beside her bed, illuminating the room softly.

His smile is child-like when he says, “We’re going to watch the sunrise.”

~*~

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Georgia mumbles, crossing her arms over her chest to conserve body heat. James just smiles as he sits down on the rooftop, his legs dangling over the edge. “It’s been too long, Georgia,” James says in a soft way. She swallows a deep breath and then exhales in a long sigh, finding her seat next to him, but instead she pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them. She leans her head on James’ shoulder and looks out on the horizon, seeing a sliver of sunshine just above the tree line.

Wriggling her fingers, Georgia occupies herself with movement while waiting for the sun to slowly move up over the tree line and show its beautiful colors. “It’s so pretty when it’s small like that,” James says, and Georgia can hear the voice of her mother instead.

In an instant she’s thrown back ten years to the same rooftop but with different company.

“It’s so pretty when it’s small like that,” Rebecca Rosenberg says, looking out at the skyline. Georgia, a small seven year-old, can’t keep her eyes off of her mother long enough to watch the sunrise. “Then, you know what happens?” Rebecca asks, her eyebrows lifting slightly. Georgia smiles, “What, momma? What happens?” She sounds so eager that Rebecca can’t keep herself from looking away from the slowly rising sun and down at her daughter. She kisses Georgia’s head before turning her attention back to the soft pinks and oranges tainting the sky.

“Whenever you wait, the longer we wait, and the older we get, the prettier the sunrise becomes,” she explains, taking her daughter’s hand off of her leg and wrapping it up in her own warm fingers. “Woah,” Georgia sighs, her voice full of awe. She smiles and bites her lip, intently watching the sun as it begins to rise, brighter colors of yellow and white splashing over the skyline. “Cool!” she exclaims, throwing her free arm in the air in a fist pumping action, her jaw dropping as she watches.

Rebecca squeezes her daughter’s fingers and continues, “The older we get, the longer we wait, the more we change.” Georgia leans further into her mother’s side as she feels her arm wrap around her shoulders. “You see how the Sun started out with a little bit of pink and yellow and now it has orange and yellow and white and even a little bit of maybe green or purple, depending where you look?” Georgia nods her head, her gaze completely enraptured in the Sun as it pulls over the edge of the trees, shining out over the entire city and outlying woods.

“People are the same, Georgia,” Rebecca speaks softly.

That gets Georgia’s attention and her head snaps away from the sunrise over to her mom. “How are people like the sunrise, momma?” she asks naively. Rebecca smiles, her face looking older now, wrinkles more prominent and her eyes tired, and rubs Georgia’s back.

“We look different when we first start rising than we do when we’re fully risen.” The sentence is weird and crazy and it doesn’t make sense in Georgia’s head, but she nods anyways. “O-Okay,” she mumbles looking down at her hands feeling stupid for not understanding. Rebecca rubs her daughter’s arm, “It doesn’t make sense now, Geeps, but one day you’ll understand. I promise.” With a kiss to her daughter’s temple, she becomes silent and together they watch the sunrise explode in vibrant colors and send a soft glow over the land it touches.