Paper Birds

Chapter Forty ; Kingdom Come

Weeks have gone by since I moved to Buffalo. Harry and the boys were out of the country, now, in Dublin, Ireland. Robbie landed a new job in addition to his old one. He's now a mechanic and training to become part of the police department. I decided that I'm never going to get into trouble again after that.

I got a job, surprisingly. I'm a clerk at a convenience store that I always forget the name to. No one ever comes in, anyway. It's really small on the outskirts of the city, and we normally get either three or four customers a day, but it helps me pay the bills and I guess that's all that matters.

They were really nice about letting me work there. Mrs. Bombay, the store owner, knew who I was and promised to keep quiet about it. She wanted to give me a chance at a new beginning.

Jonah is as busy as ever. He'd called me over a couple times to help him and Tiffani plan the wedding, which is going to take place is just a few months. Tiffani wants the colour scheme to be white, purple, and green, but Jonah hates purple and wants it to be white, blue, and green. It took a lot of comprimising with the both of them to decide on white, green and a pale pink (or as Jonah likes to call it, 'salmon').

Tiffani's picking out a wedding dress next month. She made an appointment for Kleinfeld Bridal in Manhattan, which is really cool because that's where Say Yes to the Dress is filmed. She's not going to be on TV or anything, but it's still pretty neat. Jonah's paying for half of the dress, Tiffani's mother paying for the other half. I don't know why I was surprised when I was one of the bridesmaids. I mean, yes, I am the groom's little sister, but I've only met Tiffani two or three times. I had no idea what it was like to be bridesmaid, but I guess I'd find out soon enough.

Max and Luke are really busy with college. Max managed to bring up his grades so he wouldn't flunk out, and Luke caught the winning touchdown at his last football game. Max answers my calls sometimes, but Luke is too busy with friends, football, school and girls to even bat an eye towards me.

Every moment in that apartment was lonely. I considered adopting a kitten, but I didn't want to end up as one of the those crazy cat ladies who live alone for the rest of their lives. In the end I gave up and bought some fish. I watch them for hours on end, sometimes, when I have off work. I wonder if they like being fish, or if they'd rather be something or somewhere else. Maybe they don't care. They probably even don't think.

I keep a gun under my pillow, now. Just in case.

The loneliness is getting worse and worse. I've resorted to talking to myself, talking to my fish, day after day. I couldn't buy a TV. Well, I could, I had the money, but I couldn't bear to see what was on the news. Recently I've tried reading, which I would normally spit at. I used to hate reading, but now it gave me a form of relaxation. I'd get lost in Nicholas Sparks' work, the 'romance' genre not interesting me until now. I had just finished The Last Song when Harry called me from the home phone number I invested in a few days earlier.

"That's it, Clairedy, I can't take it anymore."

"Take what, Haz?"

"I need to see you again."

"But you're on tour-"

"I know. Get on your computer, we're video-chatting."

"Okay," I replied, but he had already hung up. Almost the second after my laptop started 'ringing' with the annoying Skype call tone. I rushed over to it and answered immediatly.

My heart raced when his face popped up on the screen. His eyes widened when he saw me.

"Wow," was all that came from his mouth. I tugged at the ends of my hair, now looking almost exactly like Rapunzel, green eyes, choppier hair, everything. Except, you know, I was battered with scars and stitches and I looked way worse than animated perfection.