soda tabs || rory keaner

shes moving home

Jane sits on the couch, watching Dusk, as the teenagers who were supposed to be babysitting her mess around with the pounds candy they have for some reason.

"Look at all this! What did you rob an ice cream truck or something?" Ethan asks his lifelong best friend, Benny.

"Tomorrow we officially join the high school brotherhood. We're men." Benny reminds Ethan as he sorts through the candy. "I can't believe grandma let me leave the house tonight." Benny chuckles.

"Why wouldn't she?" Ethan asks, taking out the marshmallows.

"Thea's coming home today." He shrugs.

"Dude!" Ethan hits his friend on the back of the head, a move he learned from Althea.

"What?" Benny questions defensively, rubbing the spot Ethan hit.

"Why didn't you wait for her! She could have hung out with us!" Ethan exclaims. Althea, Ethan, and Benny were an inseparable trio when she was in the country. They loved hanging out together despite the fact that she constantly made fun of them for being nerds. She lived in New York City with her mom so they only got to see her during summers. Her dual citizenship made it easy to travel between the countries on a whim, not that it was so difficult to get into Canada anyways.

"Her flight lands super late." Benny rolls his eyes. "Plus I could have swore I told you she was coming." Benny says.

"Well you didn't." Ethan opens the bag of marshmallows. "Wait, why is she even coming? School starts tomorrow. Plus, she already said she wasn't coming this summer."

"She's moving here." Benny says excitedly. "I could have swore I told you all of this." He squints.

"That was me idiot." Jane calls from the living room. That makes more sense considering Jane is always asking when she's coming back. Jane has always liked Althea more than she likes Benny and Ethan.

"She's moving here?!" Ethan practically screams from excitement, ignoring his best friend's stupidity. "Why?"

"I don't know." Benny furrows his eyebrows. "Grandma won't tell me. Said that Thea will tell me if she's ready." Benny and Ethan look and each other, confused, wondering what she wouldn't want to tell them. They tell each other everything.

"Anyways." Ethan says. They divert their attention to the candy on the table, eating as much as they can. They immediately start an argument about who can fit more marshmallows in their mouth, ending with them stuffing their faces with as many marshmallows as they can and Jane alone outside screaming her lungs out.

***

Althea rushes off the crowded plane into the airport. She rubs her eyes, looking at the clock to see that its midnight. She groans at the fact that she has to go to school tomorrow. She didn't get much sleep on the long flight and she spent the past couple days packing all of her stuff, which is currently being shipped to Ontario. She flips open her phone to call her grandmother.

"Hello?" Evelyn Weir answers.

"Hey grandma I just landed." She smiles.

"Well I'm here waiting." The young girl's grandma excitedly says.

"Grandma! I told you I would take a cab." Althea half scolds. She hates being an inconvenience but, truth be told she didn't want to take a cab this late.

"Like I would let my granddaughter take a cab." Evelyn scoffs at the thought.

"Thank you. Oh I see you." She hangs up and watches as her grandmother looks around, confused and looking for her. Althea quickly runs up, dragging her carry on behind her and hugs Evelyn. They stand for a moment, holding each other tightly, the grandmother's arms hardly reaching around the backpack on Althea's back. She is practically a second mother to the young girl. Her and Benny's father died when they were young, along with Benny's mother. Evelyn had always taken care of her and Benny like they were her own. She saw her son in both her grandchildren, despite the fact that Althea insists that she looks nothing like her father.