Falling Awake

Part 5

"I can't look after all of the girls alone" I heard Edith sniffle "please, you guys need to wake up. Please." I tried everything I could to wake up in that moment, I kicked and screamed, without moving an inch. I felt so helpless.

I finally woke up, after what felt like an eternity of listening to Edie cry. That was as close to torture as you can get. I wandered sleepily into the living room, where I found Cassie and Denny eating leftover fruit salad together.

"Morning" I mumbled, and received a few sleepy grunts in reply. "Cass, did you hear Edith again, I was listening to her sobbing all night"
"I heard the twins, babbling about how much they missed us. It broke my heart." Cassie sighed

"Well I heard my mom on a business call. I know I should be glad my mom's around, but she's so work obsessed that you wouldn't know she's alive most days" he explained glumly. I reached out to pat his hand comfortingly, but Cassie beat me to it. That's the problem with there only being one guy in the entire world, you see, the girls really have to fight over him. I knew how much Cassie liked Denny, and how much he liked her even, but I couldn't help falling for him. I grabbed myself some fruit salad and sat down with the others,

"So Denny," I began, "tell us more about yourself."

"Well... my name is Dennis Walters, more commonly known as Denny, i'm 14, and i'm the child of a hopeless drunk and a work-obsessed-business-lady. I grew up in Pennsylvania, and just moved here a month ago, so my mom didn't have to see my dad around town anymore. She's selfish like that, making me leave all my friends just to avoid like one awkward encounter a month. But yeah, that's me" he sighed.

"That's rough" I commented

"Not as bad as you have" he soothed "at least my moms alive"

"Let's not compare here, we all had a rough time, okay?" Cassie reasoned. Sometimes Cassie was so nice that it shocked me, it reminded me of who she was before mama died. Cass used to be a girl who didn't care about what she looks like, or whether she's right, she used to just be who she was. I miss eleven year old Cassie sometimes, then again, the accident changed us all. I used to be just one of 'those girls' who didn't really have anything defining about them, now at least i'm different. I'm not just 'that girl' anymore, i'm 'that girl who looks after like ten kids.' I think, overall, the accident made us better people. Once Cass overcomes this trial, I think she will be a much better person overall. Cassie wears a mask, she pretends that she's this super self confident, bossy, bratty girl, but when that mask slips off, she's really just scared and self conscious. Like I said earlier, I know my sisters better than I know myself.

As a group, we decided to just go to the mall and see what we could find, the whole point of this project was to just make ourselves feel like we were doing something useful. The walk to the mall was about an hour and a half there, but more like two hours back, with the shopping carts. It was going to be an all day affair, that was until Denny had a crazy idea at least.

"You guys, this is gonna sound crazy, but I have an idea" Denny announced. Cassie shrugged from her seat, sprawled out on the couch, as if to say, meh knowing can't hurt us, and so he continued. "Well, there's no cars on the road, right, so I mean how hard would it really be for Jory to drive us to the mall?" he suggested

"Well, i mean it's not like we can die twice" Cassie laughed

"For the last time, we're not dead, why would people be talking to us in our dreams if we were dead" I snapped frustratedly "but, I mean, sure i'll do it"

We migrated out to the car, and strapped ourselves in tight.

"Okay," I began "so which way do you turn the keys.."