Vibrations

Chapter 16

We were standing in the parking lot, my entire little family, minus my mom...

Casey had Roo in her arms... dad had his arm wrapped around Re's shoulders.

Dad looked at me, "Well. I'm about as wrung out as possible. Who's up for dinner, my treat?"

I put my arms on the bed of my truck and looked at them all, trying to sort through all the thoughts flying through my head. Finally, I made myself focus and said, "I can't. I need to head home for the night. There are some things I have to take care of. I've put them off too long as it is."

Casey looked at me like a reptile had just sprung out of my mouth, "The trailer? Can't it wait until after dinner?"

I closed my eyes, realizing how confused I had just made her. I shook my head, "No. I mean I need to go back to my apartment. I need to go back to school. I need to get some things, my laptop, clothes, some things I'm going to need if I'm sticking around for a while. I also need to let my landlady know that I'm going to be gone for quite a while and see if she can keep an eye on the place while I'm gone. She may not like that and I might need to give my place up..."

I could see the horror spring up on Casey's face. The concern crawl into my dad's and Re's eyes.

I looked at each of them and smiled, "Don't sweat. I'm going to drive up tonight and get everything packed. I'll stay there tonight and then drive back in the morning."

I looked at Casey, "Will you come with me?"

Her eyes got wide and I could see panic surge into them. "Uh... I... uh... I mean... why?"

I raised my eyebrows at her, and grimaced a little bit, "I think we need to have..."

I was going to say 'a nice long chat', but decided that was a little too authoritarian...

"I just figured it would give us a nice opportunity to talk about some of the stuff we need to figure out?" I settled. I looked at Re, "Adrianna, will you look out for Roo tonight?"

The rage that split my little sister's face as she gave Casey a look of death was palpable...

Then she looked back at me and I could see the sympathy smash back into her eyes. I knew she was furious, and while everyone else in my life was trying really hard to stay out of the middle and avoid being judgmental about the situation my little lunatic was having none of that...

She finally nodded, "Yeah, I can."

I looked at Casey, "Is that okay with you?"

She scooped Roo up and hugged her tight, "Yeah." I could see she wasn't too happy with it, but she seemed to be taking it in stride, "How 'bout you Roo? You want to go and hang out with Aunty Re?"

She caught herself, mentally chastising herself like she had let the cat out of the bag...

I gave her a look of sympathy as I tried to make her mentally remember, Adrianna had been Roo's Aunty Re since forever... now it was just official.

Roo spun in her mom's arms, "Can we watch Dashie?"

I raised my eyebrows at Re, finally realizing who had shown Roo the weird guy from YouTube that played video games for a living...

Re rolled her eyes as she plucked Roo from her mom's arms. She looked at me, "Yeah, so I might have shown her a Dashie episode or two..." She looked at Roo, "Thanks a lot you little snitch..." she muttered as she bounced her niece.

Roo was not happy with where the conversation ended, "So can we watch Dashie or not?"

Re smiled at her, "Your momma doesn't like you watching Dashie," Re's eyes wandered over to Casey and I could feel it coming... "So of course, we can watch Dashie!" She squealed.