Unravelling

Chapter 51 - Surprises

I slept like a baby last night.

That is the first conscious thought that enters my mind when I wake up in the morning. It isn't that I normally don't sleep well. Actually, I am a very sound sleeper. Which is just as well, since it is a known fact that I need a certain number of hours of sleep each night to be able to function properly. Or to at least be somewhat bearable during the day, as my ever so charming siblings put it.

After waking up, I just lay there for a moment, enjoying the peace and quiet and the comfortable bed. Without opening my eyes, I can tell that Sean is no longer in the room. I have no idea what time it is, but I don't care. I decide that it is either still really early in the morning or that, for some reason, Sean decided not to wake me up to go to work with him.

Although it is a Tuesday, I don't have to worry about going to school and that is an awesome situation to be in. Even more so, considering that the rest of my friends and teenage brothers are not as lucky as me. I still don't know how I got away with this, but I will certainly not question Alex' decision. Otherwise he might change his mind and order me home immediately.

Last night's conversation suddenly pops into my head and I can feel a small smile appearing on my face. Although it was rather emotional, I did still really enjoy it. To be trusted with all this information about Sienna means a lot to me. And the way Sean talked about her, I know that she was the most wonderful sister anyone could ever wish for.

I think I dreamt about her last night.

Although I don't remember many details of the dream, the things I do remember leave me with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. It is no secret that I don't have many female influences in my life, other than my girlfriends and their moms and, to a certain extent, my brothers' girlfriends. In my dream, Sienna was still with us and it felt like we were a great team.

I wonder if it should worry me that even after I learned about my mother, I didn't long for her, or dream about her. With Sienna, it is different. Maybe it is because Sean did such a great job bringing her to life in my mind. I can literally picture her walking and talking and just being part of our family.

Maybe it is also because I have never even seen a photo of my mother yet. Which makes it near impossible to imagine what it would be like to know her, whereas with all the photos Sean shared with me of Sienna, she is now a very real person in my head.

After taking a deep breath to bring some reviving oxygen into my lungs, I finally open my eyes and notice that the sun is up and it is pretty bright in the bedroom. The blinds don't do much to keep the daylight out, just like they didn't help much with the street lights last night, either. I rub my eyes and then look around to find an alarm clock, but I am unsuccessful.

I wonder if Sean wakes up on time each morning without using one. It would not surprise me. Older people don't need as much sleep as kids. At least I think that's what I read somewhere.

Or they have a built in alarm clock, like Jordan claims he has. According to him, that is a useful skill if you're in the military. You go to sleep whenever you can because you never know when the next resting period comes. And you set your mental alarm clock to when you have to get up again. I have no idea how that works and if it is really a thing, but my brother insists that it is one of his many special skills that make him so unique. As if.

Stretching out all my limbs, I let a small groan escape me, which causes a shudder to run down the length of my whole body. With a sigh, I allow my head to fall back onto the pillow before I pull myself together and throw the warming blanket off. Immediately, I am hit with cold air and I shiver.

Does this place not even have a working heating system?

Looking around the room, I find the discarded hoodie, that I wore last night, lying on the floor. I don't even remember taking it off before I went to bed. Actually, I don't remember going to bed at all. I must have been half asleep by the time we called it a night.