another you ✧ irwin

three

✧TAKING THE NEXT STEP
3 days before moving in together✧

For the first time in a long time, I actually wake up with a huge grin in my face. I haven't woken up like this in a long time—usually, whenever I wake up, my body feels as if it's made of lead. I always get up some time past eleven, and nothing but Ashley's cooking could get my ass out of bed earlier than that.

I look at the clock, and I mentally pat myself on the back. It's fifteen minutes before nine a.m. I cheerily make my way downstairs, a stupid grin on my face and a song on my lips.

I enter the kitchen and see Ashley sitting down on one of the stools on the counter, the television tuned on Nickelodeon. Not that I'm complaining. No matter how old Ashley claims me to be, I'm more of a child than any her in a long shot. Ashley's holding a black mug filled to the rim with coffee. She looks at me bewilderedly. "The fuck you doing?"

I furrow my eyebrows. "What?"

"You never wake up early. Plus, don't you have some gay smut to write?" she muses. I love Ashley to death, but dear god, the smut jokes are starting to get old. But you'd be older, is what Ashley would say if I were to voice it out loud.

"There's stuff I need to do," I reply simply. I grab a mug of my own and pour in some steaming water from the thermos.

Ashley turns around her seat and grins at me like a child. "Oooh, what kind of stuff?"

I jokingly roll my eyes and pour some instant coffee in my mug. I then absentmindedly mix it as I answer Ashley's prompting questions. "Adult stuff."

"Fuck you, sis. I'm an adult too, ya know," she retorts.

"Jesus, you don't even know how to function a washing machine," I say with a sly smirk.

Ashley rolls her eyes. "It's because you're here to do it for me."

I stop stirring the spoon in my mug and set it down. "Actually, that's why I'm going out today."

"Interesting. Woke up at nine and plans to go out. Who are you and where is my sister?" she continues.

"She's at a sex joint probably collecting AIDS or something," I reply humourlessly. Ashley laughs at that. "But anyway, I need to tell you and mom something."

"Tell us what?" mom interjects as she comes trudging down the stairs carelessly. "And who the fuck is at a sex joint?"

Ashley and I laugh at her. Luckily for us both, mom stayed the laidback person that she is, even after our sonofabitch dad left us. We never saw her sad, and I remember something she said to me when I was little. I was curious and inquisitive and innocent and I asked why mom never seems sad even though dad left. She simply replied, "I'd rather water plants with my tears rather than waste it on that motherfucker." We're never fazed with her unfiltered vocabulary, especially now since Ashley and I are both adults. Mom's vulgarity actually caused our openness towards her. She knows everything about us, with her motherly care and concern still pending, ready to make a move once she figures what we're doing is wrong.

So that's why I tell them everything all at once. "Mom, I'm moving out. Ashton and I are moving in together."

First, it's silent. Mom's pouring some hot water from the thermos in her Phan mug (one that she got from me, surprise surprise), and I almost think she didn't hear me. But when she turns around, her expression is blank. "And?" she asks. She's not rude when she asks it; just stoic.

"Um, I'm just letting you guys know?" I say unsurely.

Ashley furrows her eyebrows at me. "I thought you two broke up."