Hidden Burdens (working title)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Kimmy ducked to the side of the open doorway when she saw Kayla come upstairs. The commotion between Mary yelling and Claudia launching off her bed and bursting into the girl's room startled Kimmy while she was playing her Switch. Despite that, curiosity got the best of her and Kimmy carefully slipped over to see what was going on.

Kimmy sidestepped out of sight, hoping the woman hadn't noticed, and hugged the wall. She peeked around the door frame to see Miguel had followed Kayla but remained at the top of the stairs. He held his hands hooked on the railing, watching his sister's door, as well. His gaze caught sight of her, causing Kimmy to duck back once more.

The younger kids could hear Claudia yelling at Ben and Kayla stepping in, ordering both of them out of the room. Both of them fought her, but Kayla wasn't having any of it and insisted they leave.

Claudia left first. She stormed back into her and Kimmy's room, rambling off a slew of cuss words and mumbling something Kimmy couldn't quite understand.

Kimmy stared over at the teen girl, watching as she dropped back on her bed and picked up one of those magazines teenagers read.

She eventually noticed. "Need something, kid?"

Kimmy shook her head out of the trance her mind sometimes gets lost in. It's usually while she's awkwardly staring at someone, which of course makes the person uncomfortable. It was mainly the reason she rarely made eye contact with others.

Kimmy turned away in time to see Ben had come out into the hallway as well and lifted Miguel into his arms to carry him downstairs. Watching the commotion reminded her of everything Claudia had told her.

Everyone seemed to be upset about something.

With things quiet and settled for now, Kimmy wandered back to her bed where she had her Switch set on her nightstand so she could play with her controller. Well, a knockoff of one Stella got off of Amazon since Nintendo's pro controllers were too expensive.

Thankfully, she hadn't loaded up her current world in Minecraft yet and wasn't anywhere she could have gotten her character killed and lost all of her inventory.

Kimmy sat on the edge of her bed, pulling one of her pillows onto her lap to hold the controller on it. She booted up the world in hopes of getting lost in the game and escaping from the crappy real world. Eventually, she had to plug her headphones in when Claudia asked her to, not wanting to hear the "creepy sounds" coming from the game. It actually helped a lot better that way because before she knew it, Miguel was there. She wasn't sure how much time had passed, but it was enough to stock up her inventory to go exploring and wander deep into a dark cave.

He reached out to touch her shoulder, startling her once again.

Kimmy looked over at once to see him waving and removed the right side of the headphones to hear.

"I was asking if I could watch you?"

She stared back at him and shrugged like she didn't care.

Miguel must have taken it as a yes because he asked to sit on her bed before plopping down beside her. He was close enough that Kimmy had to scoot over, some.

Kimmy resumed mining for the iron she had come across while searching for diamonds. It was clear the kid hadn't seen the game because he had a question for everything she did. At least he was keeping it to yes or no questions, but still. Miguel wanted to know everything.

Sometime later, Claudia got up from her bed again and asked if the kids wanted a sandwich since she was going to make herself one.

Miguel instantly jumped up, proclaiming he loved the oldest girl's sandwiches.