Love Letters

Love Letters (Part 8)

                                                                         (T)

I felt my face pull itself into a smile as soon as I saw her letter on the doormat and picked it up. What a way to brighten my rather crappy day. I walked over to the freezer and pulled out a bag of peas, not realising it was an open bag and watched as the pesky green balls scattered all over the tiles. I sighed and called Alex to come downstairs.

‘Alex! Come down please, I’ve had a bit of an accident.’

My oldest sister came running down as I knew she would, sometimes I felt like her world revolved around me though I never let her know that I knew, I was grateful that she took so much care of me. After my mum had passed away and my dad had left us, Alex had taken care of us. She was twenty-five and soon to be married to her long-term boyfriend Jack who was pretty much alright. I wasn’t hung up over the loss of my parents like everyone expected me to be, I had Alex, Fudge and Cass, the equivalent of three parents, some people had none so who was I to complain?

Alex walked in and surveyed the mess I’d just made and put her hands on her hips. I didn’t see her do it, I just knew, it was her mum-act. I carried on rummaging through the freezer.

‘Alex, don’t we have any more bags of peas?’ I asked her as I did so.

‘At the back, but what the hell have you done to my kitchen? I just mopped the floor!’

I turned to face her and gave her a full view of my black eye and grinned as I said, ‘Boo!’

She opened her mouth in horror and immediately ran over to me, she bent down and attempted to touch it and I pulled away.

‘Alex!’ I moaned, ‘It’s not even that big a deal! You should see the other-’

‘Not that big a deal? It looks like a very big deal from where I’m standing! How did it happen?’

Suddenly I wished I’d called for Fudge to come downstairs instead, she was more of a tomboy and would’ve understood that I didn’t want to answer any questions just then.

‘Well,’ I started, leaning back against the dishwasher as she handed me a frozen bag of mixed vegetables. ‘Mack and Jace were just standing at the bus stop and I was walking by when I saw some thug walk up to them. At first I thought they knew him, but then I saw him punch Jace and I ran back and jumped at him. Alex, it was amazing! I punched him about six times before he landed his first and last punch,’ I pointed to my eye. ‘Turns out he was trying to take their phones and Jace had stood up to him, lucky for them though I saved their butts. We heard police sirens and then he just got up and ran.’

‘Why’d you always have to play the hero? Someday you’re going to get hurt and nobody’s going to come save you, and then what?’

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair, it was short and a dirty blonde colour, ‘You don’t have to worry about me Alex, and I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.’

We heard the front door close and heard Jack call out to see who was home. I groaned and sat on the dishwasher as I waited for his lecture. Alex nodded in approval and called out to him, ‘Jack, we’re in here. Just come and see what he’s done to himself this time.’

This was going to take a long time; I put the letter in my back pocket and readied myself for ‘the talk’. This guy was less of a future brother-in-law and more of a father to me despite being only twenty-six himself and with the role of fatherhood came the inevitable role of lecture-giver.

Jack looked nothing like his parents, when we met them we couldn't quite believe they were from the same family. He was dark-haired, tall and burly, his parents were light-haired, short and his mother was petite. That was the only similarity between Jack and his father, they were both burly men. Jack had tell-tale signs of wrinkles in the creases of his eyes which showed everytime he smiled though his dimples took the attention away from it.

He had one or two white hairs too,the only sign that he wasn't as relaxed as he made out. Alex put it down to the stress he kept facing at work and kept encouraging him to take it easy but he was a determined man, he wasn't going to slow down after hitting the ground running.

He came in to the kitchen, took one look at my face, gave a small whistle and got started.