"Hey," Scarlett said as she knocked on Cammie's door. Scarlett although she had taken days off here and there for Cammie's procedures she had accumulated some paid time off and wanted to use it spending time with her kids. No doctors, just fun. "Do you want to go for a small walk?"
"Nope." Cammie said not looking up from her phone.
"Do you want to make homemade pizza for lunch? Or fish tacos? I could run to the store and get some-" Scarlett offered.
"Nope," Cammie said again.
"Do you want to paint your room a new color? Or get a new desk? This one is pretty old we could look online?" Scarlett said moving closer to Cammie, trying to get her to look up from her phone.
"Nope." Each nope was deeper and more bitter. Cammie didn't want to do anything. She was depressed and miserable and there was nothing anyone could say or do to change that. Although pizza did sound good.
"Well, what about changing up the basement? I have been meaning to get rid of the carpet and put in the foam gym mats for a while now..." Scarlett began hesitantly as she thought of more things that Cammie would inevitably turn down.
"Nope."
"Well I wasn't asking for your permission little Miss Nope." Scarlett said putting her hands on her hips. "I was simply hoping you might want to help me move around the furniture."
"Nop-"
"Yeah, yeah," Scarlett waved a hand back at Cammie as she left feeling defeated. A few years ago Cammie and Scarlett surprised Eliot and Evan for Christmas with redoing the basement. They put up posters, organized their comics, made it a little man cave for them. Still Eliot enjoyed playing video games on the tv in the family room, but otherwise the boys were down there constantly. But the basement had flooded one too many times and the floors needed a revamp. "I'm going to start moving things around, come on down if you feel like helping and getting off your booty."
"Nope." Cammie said again, but she watched her mom leave, Scarlett's shoulders sagged and she looked down as she left. Cammie felt bad, but her mom wasn't the one with the deformed face, she was.
"Eliot I'm going to redo the basement, I need some big strong muscles to help me." Eliot jumped up and raised his arms showing Scarlett his tiny muscles, he was sore after boxing all morning, but he would help. "Yeah, those muscles, just like your daddy. So you're going to help me?" Eliot nodded running back to his game, saving it and turning it off.
"You are not taking down my posters are you?" Worried filled his voice as they descended the stairs.
"No, no, no I'm just going to change out the floor. It's muggy down there from when it flooded."
"Oh, okay. Good." He let out a breath of relief and smiled as he pushed with all his might the chair out of the way. "Where am I putting all this?" He questioned standing upright looking around. Scarlett pointed and Eliot's eyes went wide, that was far away and this was heavy. "Hold on a second." He ran back up the stairs as Scarlet began moving things.
"Eliot?" Scarlett called as he ran away. She started to push a pool table out of the way.
"Cammie I need you please hurry!" Eliot said faking fear and pulling at her arm. She followed him confused, was mom hurt? Dad?
"Oh you decided to join us?" Scarlett said a new smile on her face. Cammie looked to Eliot who stood arms out blocking her from running back upstairs.
"Yeah, I guess." Cammie replied letting out an annoyed breath, she rolled her eyes around the room. "What do you want me to do?"
"First, press play on your music." Cammie grinned pulling out her phone from her pocket and turned up the volume. "Now start moving all this stuff over there." Cammie did as directed with Eliot moving lighter things and dancing wildly around wiggling more rapidly as the room began to clear.
