Call It Home (Adopted by Brendon & Sarah Urie)

4.4

Hey. Landon texted me simply the next day after everyone else left.

Hey. I answered, just as simply

I put my phone down on my bed, and went downstairs.

"Hey, Catie, did you have fun last night?" Brendon asked.

"What?" I paused in my tracks for a little bit, mid opening the fridge.

"You and your friends?" He said confused, "I heard you guys up late last night."

"Oh, yeah. We had fun." I smiled. "Thanks for letting them come over. Do we have food?"

"We have cereal, and fruit. Sarah's still asleep so we haven't made anything." He answered, "I need to take food up to Alyssa."

"What's wrong with her?" I asked, handing him a bowl from the cabinet.

"I think she's sick, I don't know." He shrugged. "She was in our room last night claiming she was freezing, but she was sweating bullets."

"That's weird." I commented, "It's probably just like a 24 hour thing."

"If it doesn't pass in a couple days I'm gonna take her to a doctor. Can you hand me a water bottle?" I grabbed him a water bottle out of the fridge, and grabbed myself a banana from the counter.

"Can I watch a movie?" I asked, walking to the living room.

"It's your house too, C. You can do whatever you want."

So I made my way to the living room, and cuddled up under one of the couch blankets. I pressed play on the Greatest Showman DVD, and softly sang along to the opening.

"Hey, baby." Sarah came into the living room with her pajamas still on. "Is Bren with Alyssa?"

"Yeah, he said she was sick." I turned around to talk to her.

"I was up all night with her." Sarah rubbed her eyes.

"I wish you would've told me, I would've got up with you. But I think Brendon put coffee in the thing."

I remembered I had a project that I had to do by tomorrow technically.

"Sarah when you come back here can you bring me my laptop and book bag please?" I asked.

"Yeah, do you need anything else?" Sarah replied, now sipping on a mug of coffee.

"No thanks."

I turned my attention back to the movie for a minute, before I heard Alyssa crying.

"Dad, I don't want it, I'm not hungry right now." She cried.

"Just drink some of this." Brendon was begging her. "Come watch a movie with me and Catelyn."

I lost focus of what they were doing, but Sarah came downstairs with my bag, and Brendon came down carrying Alyssa.

I finished my project by the time the movie was over, and had nothing else to do all day, so I went back upstairs, to my phone which I had forgotten about.

From Landon : Listen. I think I like you. I really do, but I don't know how this works. Maggie and Lucy would be pissed, and I don't even know what you think.

From Landon : Cate?

From Landon : if you don't like me just tell me please, or let me gather more of my feelings first.

To Landon : sorry, i was doing my project for English. I don't know. I need more time.

I placed my phone on my dresser, balancing it on the mirror and starting an Instagram live, trying to distract myself.

"Hey guys!" I smiled at the camera as people joined. "I look gross right now." I remembered my gray sweatpants, and my loose creme colored t shirt.

Of course, some of the first comments were "where is Brendon?"

"Brendon is downstairs with Alyssa and Sarah." I answered. "No I will not go outside because Alyssa is sick."

"Do you guys wanna know what I did this weekend? I don't really know what to do I was bored and did my school work already."

Most of the comments were "yes!" but the others were "where's Brendon." Which I get, Bren is why they follow me.

"So yesterday I had friends spend the night and we like hung out in the pool and stuff, then we like watched movies and hung out. Then this morning, I woke up and I ate a banana for breakfast then I watched Greatest Showman. Halfway through Greatest Showman I decided to be productive, so I got, well Sarah got it for me, but I got my school stuff so I could do a project."

I nodded as I finished and grabbed my drink.

"What kind of music do you listen to?" I read a comment out loud. "I like 5 Seconds of Summer a lot. I don't listen to Panic a lot because it's kind of weird if I do? If that makes sense. When Bohemian Rhapsody came out, me and Bren saw it a ridiculous amount of times, so Ive kind of been on a Queen kick recently."

Instagram lives were awkward because I was kind of just talking to myself.

But, Brendon heard my silent prayer, and knocked on the door with a plate of food in his hand.

"Hey, it was getting close to lunch and I thought you'd be hungry. Me and Alyssa made bagel pizza because it's the only thing she wanted to eat, then I brought you goldfish." I smiled, and motioned for him to come into my room.

"Thank you." I took the plate and the goldfish bag, and placed the goldfish bag on my dresser. "I'm on Instagram live."

"That's what you're doing? I thought you were just talking to yourself." He joked, and I hit his arm lightly.

Most of the comments were "awwww" and I laughed at them as Brendon sat on my couch.

"So what have you been doing on this Instagram live?" He asked, readjusting himself so he was leaning forward more.

"They asked about my day so I told them about my day and that's as far as we've gotten." I nodded to my phone. "Is Alyssa feeling better?"

"She ate one of the pizza things then said she felt sick. I think Sarah was trying to make her take a cold shower because shes still sweating bullets." He placed his face in his hands and looked back up at the camera. "Being a parent is hard guys."

"I wouldn't know." I shrugged.

"Do you wanna come watch a movie with me while Sarah takes Alyssa to get medicine?" He asked, looking at a text I'm assuming was from Sarah.

"Yeah." I grabbed my phone to end the live stream. "Bye guys, thanks for entertaining me for a while."

"What do you wanna watch?" Brendon asked as we went down the stairs, the dogs footsteps following behind us.

"Can we watch Spy Kids." I laughed, jumping over the back of the couch to my usual spot.

"Anything you want." He took the Apple TV remote and turned it on Netflix.

We didn't know it at the time, but this day was the beginning of the worst chapter of our lives.