Running Towards the Light

Chapter 33 - Permission

Shit, shit, shit.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

FUCK!

Was the first thing to enter my mind when I woke up that morning. Fuck, I messed up.

With everything going on in my life recently — our camping trip that Cameron got hurt on, dealing with Cam's injury, and me just flipping out in front of my brothers by accident — I have really just neglected my responsibilities.

It was like I was pulled away from reality for just a couple days — whether that was a good thing or not, the jury was still out. But nonetheless, for a few days I was completely caught up in the moment (and the past) and forgot about everything else.

I'm too scared to check my grades, but I'm sure they've suffered a great ton as I haven't done homework in a long time. I just hope Chris doesn't check them until after I do what I have to do.

Which brings me to the main thing that has occupied and stressed out my brain this morning. If I blow this ... it'll be bad. For the past few weeks, Ben and I have been on a mission. That mission was to find out our family's secrets. Then I roped in my friend, Zeke, to come with me so we can follow Dylan down to Newarch where he's mysteriously meeting his 'girlfriend' whom he'll tell us nothing about. However, that plan revolves around tomorrow night's game — West's basketball game to be exact. And in order for Zeke and I to make it down to Newarch without a hitch I need to pretend to sleepover at his house. In order to sleep over at his house I need to get Chris's permission. And my big brother isn't that keen on giving me premission a day before so this was going to be a hard one.

"West!" I squirmed under my brother's arm that was caging me in.

My brothers like to claim that they don't like to do affectionate things or cuddle all the time – but I think they're just full of shit. My brothers are probably better at showing their affection than me. And every time I go sit by them — even if I don't sit with them — they are always the one who ends up pulling me into them or draping an arm over me. Just like West last night, I would be perfectly fine with sleeping on the opposite sides of the bed, but he insisted and didn't let me go all night. Or morning.

I fell asleep pretty quickly last night — as I think did West and Cameron as well — seeing as we had a pretty long and stressful day. But I was in the end, very glad that Spencer found me and that he prompted me to sleep with one of my brothers. It really does make me feel better and I know I would have either gotten no sleep or had a nightmare if left to my own devices. 

"Get off of me!" I attempted once again to push my brother's arm away from around my waist.

West groaned, pulling me tighter and closer as he nuzzled his face into my hair, mumbling some nonsense I couldn't make out.

"West!" I moaned.

"Shhh." He said, wrapping a hand around my mouth. "Back to sleep, baby."

"Ewww!" I called out, managing just barely to pull his hand from my mouth as he chuckled and let his arm drop. "Get. Off. Of. Me." I puncture each word out, hitting him with every breath.

"Jeez, chill B." West mumbled. "It's like five in the fucking morning." He continued to grumble, pulling me into him almost painfully as a sort of warning that we were staying in bed. 

"It's seven and we have to be up in thirty minutes!" I hissed back.

I stopped screaming at my brother as I realized that the rest of the house was probably still sleeping, not to mention our injured brother is just across the room from us, trying to sleep and recover. So instead, I settled for whisper screaming.