When We All Fall Asleep

Chapter 18 - Elizabeth's Return

Shyly, even though she was my sister, I knocked on her bedroom door. I could have just walked right in and stressed her out for not knocking, but I don't need a fight when our mom is coming home.

"Go on in," she shouted from inside.

I opened the door and, guess what, I got it right. She was sitting in her desk chair with her drawing pencil in her hands. The legal sheet with the sketch of her drawing was on the table, next to her cell phone which was where the sound of the Lo-fi music was coming from.

"What's it?" she asked sweetly, placing her pencil lying beside the drawing. "It's getting good?" She excused herself from the front of the drawing so I could see it.

I went to the desk and watched him... It was our mother with us in front of a circus we had gone to here in town about five years ago. The Billie in the photo was the smallest and was in Elizabeth's lap, smiling showing her baby teeth. I was on their side facing them eating a bucket of popcorn. I giggled when I remembered asking our mom for that bucket... she held on saying "no" until she couldn't take it and bought it for me.

"Wow, Billie, it is..." I said, but I had to analyze the drawing more, it was "amazing."

She smiled at me.

"Thanks." She looked at the drawing. "I wanted to give this to her when you get...speaking of which, did you ask her why she took so long?"

"Yes, she had to spend the night in a hotel."

"But Manily is only ten miles from here and she was already past the county limit, wasn't she?"

"Well, I didn't understand either. She said it was a problem with the bus driver, I think."

"Hmm... Anyway, I'm done. Why don't you make her a breakfast table, huh? When I'm done here I'll help you assemble it."

"Okay, I—" I started to walk toward the door, but she cut me off.

"No, wait!" She stopped to think, putting her index finger to her chin like she was a TV show detective. "You can let me make you breakfast. I remembered those burnt scrambled eggs you made."

"Oh, stop, right!"

We both laughed, but I ended up letting her make the coffee. She was right, I really didn't know how to cook.

It was after seven now. I was scared of how late my mom would be just to walk about a mile to get home...by bus. There had been enough time for me and Billie to set up the breakfast table, but I was even thinking about changing the theme for the lunch table because of her lateness.

My sister had made toast with the shriveled buns she had found on the shelves above the sink, buttering them and putting them in the oven on top of a baking tray, then she made some natural strawberry juice without sugar and plain coffee, she had it too. like a chocolate cake that was even baking in the oven now, cream cheese (she didn't make it) and, finally, some guava sweets that she found inside the fridge.

"There's more old food here than fresh," I said, watching the table already set in the pantry. My sister was taking the cake out of the oven in the meantime. "Seriously, how come there was all this stuff here to eat and I didn't know about it?"

"Because you don't even bother looking for it," she said, arriving at the pantry with a pair of gloves in her hands and the chocolate cake tray being held by them.

With a slight sigh, Billie placed the cake on the table and then walked away, taking the gloves off her hands so she could look at the table fully. Everything was beautiful... it didn't even seem like two teenagers had set it up alone.