Unravelling

Chapter 5 - Sunday Morning Scuffles

I wake up to the feeling of a weight pushing heavily onto my chest. One of my arms is pinned against my body, while the other is somehow tangled up in my pillow at a weird angle. All in all, I am very uncomfortable and I cannot really move at all. I try to wriggle around a bit, with the result, that the weight on my chest gets heavier, if that is even possible. My attempts at dislodging my arms from their current positions are futile, too.

Then I notice that the only part of my body which I can move are my legs. I am obviously at the mercy of one of my brothers – which one, I have not yet figured out, since my back is turned towards his body and my brain is still too foggy from sleep for me to remember much of the previous night. I decide that I need to do something to get myself out of this predicament, so I pull my left leg up and somewhat forcefully drive my foot backwards into my unsuspecting brother's shin.

A yelp escapes the person behind me, who I immediately identify as Sean. And just like that, the memories of our late night chat come flooding back to me. Despite him still clinging onto me as if I was his lifeline, a smile washes over my face.

Sean's moving back home!

I start to wriggle about some more, still hoping to dislodge myself from his steely embrace. My arm underneath the pillow is slowly starting to cramp.

"Would you keep still already?" Sean groans, his voice thick with sleep.

"You're crushing me," I huff and cautiously deliver another couple of kicks to his shin.

"I'm sorry," he mutters and finally releases the death grip from my body.

He shuffles around and this allows me to finally pull my right arm out from underneath the pillow. A tingling sensation runs up and down my limb and I rub it with my now also freed other hand while shifting onto my back. I turn my head to look at my brother next to me and giggle when I find him lying there, still pretty much dead to the world. His hair is a dark mess and he has got some drool dribbling down the corner of his mouth. I wish I were allowed to have my new phone in my bedroom, because this would be a great picture to share on our family chat.

Actually, I have to remember to get my brothers to add me to said chat in the first place. I smile again at the thought of having my own phone, which allows me to finally be part of their online conversations. I know from the twins that they use that method of communication quite often. I am curious to see what goes on in that chat group.

I lift my left arm and intentionally let it drop heavily onto my brother. Sean jumps in shock, causing me to laugh again.

"What the hell, Lily?" he exclaims.

"Ooops, sorry," I reply innocently.

Sean just grumbles something under his breath, still refusing to open his eyes. I shuffle around until I lie so that my body is turned towards him. I prop my head up on my hand and look at him, wondering what he is going to do next.

But nothing happens. The way his chest rises and falls in regular intervals makes me realise that he has fallen back asleep. I lift my head a bit higher and glance at my alarm clock that's on the bedside table on my brother's side of the bed. It's already past 10am!

I am surprised that nobody has attempted to get us up yet. Although it is Sunday and most of my brothers like to sleep in on their day off, it is rather unusual that the house is still so quiet at this time of the day.

Alex totally believes in the saying that the early bird gets the worm, or something. He is weird like that. It makes him get up at the crack of dawn even on a day off and he normally goes for a run. He is regularly trying to push this lifestyle onto us younger kids, but so far, he has been pretty unsuccessful. We have not yet figured out what should be so great about getting up early, only to torture ourselves with ridiculously tiresome activities.