P L A N B E T A

Chapter Eighteen

November 27th, 2042

Wagner

Orren left a while ago, and Ara hasn't been taking it lightly, she misses him a lot, but now I could finally say that we were leaving tonight.

Ara and I's bags were packed from the night before when we woke up. The whole house smells like cinnamon rolls and pumpkin, which brought me back to the feeling of my own home. Candles were lit around the house which only made it smell better, but there was still obvious loneliness in both Ara and I. No parents, no Jack Peter, no Orren, no little siblings. My heart felt like it ripped on the twenty-first when I couldn't wish Max a happy ninth birthday.

My grandmother and grandad were both dressed in oranges. "We have dresses ready for you girls in the living room, your cousins will be here soon, all of you are dressed in yellow," my grandmother said. Our tradition was for my grandparents to wear orange, our parents to wear red, and for us to wear yellow. It was a tradition that brought Generation X, Generation Z, and Gen Beta together as a family and celebrated whatever we had going for us. We even brought the Baker-Cranes and the Cullen's with us, but I knew that this year there was going to be a lot of questions that would deeply hurt, and I could answer none of them.

We put on the dresses with no questions asked. We weren't going to upset anyone on our last day here. My cousins and aunts and uncles started flooding into the house. One of my aunts showed up that Ara had never met, her name is Kelly. "Okay Ara, so Kelly has a lot of kids and their names all start with K. They're like those Kardashian people but on methamphetamine," I started explaining. I then started to name them off, pointing at every one of them as I said their name. "Keira, Kirstin, Katherine, Kaleb, Keanan, Kayla, Krane, Koko, Keiyarah, whose name is spelled weird but pronounces key-are-ah, Kaoimhe, which looks weirder but it's pronounced key-va. They're weird and we don't talk to them often but to be completely fair I don't like talking to any of my family because they're big and they scare me," I ranted. She smiled and we talked with family for a while.

We even played games with the family and genuinely enjoyed their company. For a few moments, it was like we had full families again, but that didn't mean that it was the same. I still wanted to get Jack Peter back, and if that meant leaving the comfort of this safe place, then it's what I had to do. We promised to do anything for each other when we were little, and I refused to break that promise.

Even Leo and his family came by, and they told us that they didn't even celebrate Thanksgiving. All of my cousins my age and Leo went up to my room. We all talked about what went on in our own lives, and of course, everyone was interested in the huge family secret that was Ara and I being apart of GZU. They asked about Orren and Jack Peter, and everyone forgot that Leo wasn't part of the family.

"Wait whose kid are you?" Asks my cousin Aryah to Leo.

"The neighbors. But I'm not going to tell anybody about this, don't worry, Maia," he confirmed. I nodded cautiously and continued talking.

I have eight aunts and three uncles. Some of them are half-blood to my mother and two of them are adopted but they are no less Ellers than my mother. In fact, we never wanted an Eller out of the family, so if a family member couldn't take care of a child another would adopt them, that's what happened with my brother Maxwell.

Max was born to a cousin of my mom at eighteen. My mom was twelve years older than her and already had Orren and I. She found out about two years after Max's birth that her cousin Gina had been mistreating Max. Leaving him uncared for while she would go out and party and return to find him in dangerous situations. My mom and Gina fought for three years to get him into my mother's custody, and finally, one night while Gina was out partying again, we just went in through a broken window in his room and got him. Gina didn't even notice he was gone until the next afternoon. We then won in court to get full custody of Max, and Gina was put in jail. It's only been a whole of three years since Gina was sent to jail, and Max is constantly in his mind and anxious whenever around adults that intimidate him. He barely even speaks to the Baker-Cranes or most of the Cullens. However, Gwen was always his best friend. It was ride or die for those two, she brought out the fun little kid in him that normally only my family got to see.

I snap out of the thought in my head and look outside, it's dark, of course, but it makes the fact that I'm leaving feel more real than it did before. Before I can even fathom the thought, my aunt Kelly comes up to my room.

"Okay K's it's time to go home. Say your goodbyes and come meet me in the living room," she instructs. All of the K kids hug Ara, the rest of the cousins and I and flood downstairs. At one point my cousin Elenore leaned over to Leo and gave him her number, but so did her brother Jeremy.

My uncle Tim knocks on the open door and leans against it. He is the father, and previous mother, of Elenore and Jeremy. "Come on kiddos it's time to roll on out of this joint. See you later macaroons," he said to us. Elenore and Jeremy exchanged embarrassed looks and said goodbye to us all.

"They live in Sleepy Hollow, y'know," I winked at Leo. "Have you never seen them before?"

"I've heard of them," he responded. "But I thought neither of them would really ever notice me."

"Well look who's being noticed now," I tease and lean back against the window.

Little by little, everyone starts to leave. Eventually, Arabella and I are left by ourselves in our room. Our stuff is still packed and now we just have to say goodnight to our grandparents. Ara and I walk downstairs to the kitchen and see my grandma and grandad cleaning up all of the plates and cups. I almost offered to help but then I am reminded that we have to get at least a little bit of rest before we leave at two am.

"Are you kids going to bed?" They ask. We nod. "Well alright. We love you girls." We tell them we love them too and start to head upstairs when we both hear them say in unison, "Be safe." Ara and I exchange worried and nervous looks.

"What?" Ara asks from the stairs.

"Oh nothing, get to bed now," my grandad urges. Every single night that I had seen my grandparents they always said 'see you tomorrow' when we said goodnight. Maybe they knew that we were leaving, but maybe they thought they couldn't stop us.

Two O'Clock hits. Our train leaves at three, so we gather our bags and sneak downstairs to the front door. Arabella places letters that we wrote for everyone saying goodbye on the island in the kitchen and we take our suitcases out. It's a twenty-minute walk from our house to Philipse Manor train station and Arabella and I are not nearly ready for this walk.

The moon is full and it matches perfectly with the pitch black sky. I look up and try to look for what could be the pod, but then I almost immediately pull my attention back down to look where I'm walking. I look back at the house and can only see the back porch light on, but then I refuse to look back.

We pass the bridge, but when we do so I see Arabella linger for a moment before she actually moves on. I look over at her and raise a brow, but she shoves it off and I return to minding my own business. When we finally get to Philipse Manor, we sit for a little bit in silence. I feel like I could pass out but Arabella is wide awake. Her eyes are dull but she is still making it obvious she won't sleep until we get to Kit-Island.

"Hey Ara," I say. She looks over at me and smiles. "I'm so glad that we aren't at each other's necks anymore. I didn't like that at all."

"I'm sorry I made it like that," she apologizes.

"Don't be sorry, it's alright. I'm just glad it's not like that anymore. I'm glad we can be friends," I admit. She smiles wider and nods, that was the moment Arabella and I grew up.

The little golden guppy has kept her eyes to the sky for a while now. Once the bigger fish swims into the reef, the beetle and guppy are left for their own, just wanting to return home. They attempt to get somewhere together. At first the fish attempts in growing legs, which of course will fail. The beetle tries to jump into the water but nearly drowns. The beatle then takes a small dried leaf from the shore and hops on top of it, pushing it with all of her might to the water until she and the guppy can easily be with each other.