A Long Way From Home

Chapter Four: Center Fleeing

       Post dinner was... tense, to say the least. I had done as I said and gone to my room with the intent of sending in an application, but even with the required information set up and prepared to send, I couldn't bring myself to submit it with the yelling of my parents in the background.

        Apparently a big house doesn't mute the sound of Irish screeching. Actually, it even echoes.

        I leaned my elbows on my desk, staring at my computer. It was mostly handmade, funnily enough. We'd originally had it as a family computer, but when it broke I claimed it as my own and fixed it all up.

       Subconsciously, I patted the screen frame fondly. Realizing what I was doing, I shook my head and sighed, standing up and staring at the lit monitor from across the room.

       It glowed menacingly, daring me to hit that big red button.

       I stood for several moments, then flopped onto my bed, screaming into my pillow. Obviously it muffled itself, so I let it go on for a solid thirteen seconds at least before I stopped.

       "Son of a bitch," I shouted into the pillow with my eyes open, watching the purple flashing blobs shift around in the black.

       "That's not really a lady-like way to talk."

        I moved my head to look up at Shea, who was closing the door behind her. I put my head back in the pillow. "Are you gonna yell at me?"

       She sighed, shifting the mattress next to me. "No."

       "Then why are you here?"

       I could feel her move around. "Because I want you to know that I think you should do it."

       I moved my head again, facing her. "Seriously?"

      She nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. "Yeah."

      I sat up and sat crisscross. "Why?"

      Shea mimicked my seating position across from me. "You love tinkering, you love science, you like hard-work and the smell of oil and gasoline and the sound of metal on metal..." She rubbed her hands together. "I don't know. It's what's best for you."

      My bottom lip began to quiver. "You don't think I'm abandoning you?"

      Shea leaned over and held my head to her chest. I let myself fall into her, wrapping my arms around her stomach. "No. Are you?"

      "No, never, not in a billion years." I sniffed and wiped my nose with the sleeve of my cardigan.

       "Then I don't feel like you're abandoning me at all..." she stroked my hair softly, leaning her chin on top of my head. "I know that you'll take your fiddle, and I know that you'll take your dancing shoes, and I know you'll take all your weird dreamcatchers and yarn and your creepy posters of Frank Sinatra."

      "They aren't creepy!" I laughed through my near-almost-close to the surface sobs.

     "Maeve, they're totally creepy."

      I tilted my head up to look at her. Shea was already smiling warmly at me.

      "You're a good little sister."

       "Only good?"

       I rolled my eyes. "The best," I clapped, "around."

       "That's more like it."

        I laughed into her chest, sniffling a little. After a few minutes of us sitting like that quietly, I pulled away and laid down on my back. She joined me and we both stared up at my glow in the dark ceiling planets.