Chapter 26
The last two weeks have been crap. School has been long and frustrating. I’ve had way too much homework and the teachers are starting to really piss me off. The Parker household hasn’t been any better. Everyone is quiet and keeps to themselves. The happy, fun, busy, and loving home I first came to know is now long gone. Everyone is taking Andrew’s cancer really hard.
The day after everyone found out about Andrew’s cancer, Alison told us that he had stage 3 chronic Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. He already started chemotherapy a week ago. Alison said it was going pretty good, but it was taking a tool on poor Andrew. She said he got so sick he could hardly sit up. The chemo also caused most of his hair to fall out, so he ended up shaving his head. Now he wears either a green bandana or his favorite SpongeBob hat. Luckily, his cancer wasn’t to the stage where he needed to spend the night at the hospital, but if he gets worse than the hospital could possibly become his new home.
It was currently 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and I was laying on me bed, thinking about anything and everything. All the boys have been pretty distant and detached. Whenever I try and talk to them, they don’t listen or just walk away. I get what they are going through, but did they have to act this way? There is a better way to deal with the news than doing this. The only person that doesn’t seem totally dead inside is Cayden. Every night for the last week he and I have watched tv or a movie in my room until he’s too tired to keep watching.
The house was quiet, except for the tv on down in the living and the quiet sobbing that I could hear all the way from Alison’s room. Since the day she found out about Andrew’s cancer, Alison’s eyes have been read and her cheeks blotchy from crying. And I’m pretty sure she isn’t getting any sleep. I feel so bad for her.
A loud cry brought me out of my thoughts. I recognized Sabrina’s sweet little cry. Instead of just letting Alison or Austin get her, I sprang out of bed and quickly scurried to her room to comfort her. I walked into her pink and orange nursery to find her wide awake and playing with her little monkey stuffed animal. A toothy smile bloomed across her face as she saw me walk in.
“Hey baby girl, what’s all the fuss about, huh? You’re going to wake your mommy and daddy up, and we don’t want that.” I picked her up and cuddled her in my arms. She cooed and nestled her head into my shoulder. I love little kida. How could you not? It’s the moments like this that I can’t wait to have kids of my own. Ten minutes of walking around a soothing later, I was rethinking that thought. She still hasn’t fallen asleep.
“Okay Sabrina, this isn’t going to work. We both need sleep. How about this?” I grabbed her blankey, pacifier, little monkey, and her porta crib/ pack-n-play out of the closet and dragged everything into my room. I gently set the little angel on my bed and she occupied herself with my pillows. Quickly, I set up the pink and brown flowered bed for her right next to my bed. Next, I rocked her for about another five minutes and then sat her down in the bed and covered her in her blanket. She wasn’t hysterically crying, so I took that as my sign to quickly use the bathroom.
After I relieved myself and washed my hands, I came back to find her sound asleep. Well, that was easier than I thought. I switched off the lights and crawled into my bed and snuggled into my soft blankets.
*****
Morning came way too soon. I hardly got any sleep last night. Sabrina only woke up once, and I got her back to sleep. But besides that, I was laying there awake listening to her to make sure that she was okay. I’ve never watched a little kid through a whole night and I was terrified that something would happen to her.
I slipped into my bathroom and had a very quick shower, taking advantage of Sabrina still being asleep. I wrapped a towel around me and walked into my closet. Hmm, what to wear, what to wear. Well it’s Friday and I have nothing special going on tonight, so that crossed dressy off the list. There was no school today because it was some teacher in service day, which was fine by me. Now how about cute, flirty, retro, or new? Screw this. I grabbed a pair of sweatpants and my Under Armor sweatshirt. I decorated my eyes in a small amount of makeup, only a little mascara and eyeliner. Not caring how my hair looked I brushed through it and them braided it into a fishtail.
Sabrina was starting to stir, so I picked her up and wrapped her in her blanket. Not wanting to worry Alison that her baby was missing, I walked into the kitchen and set the pretty girl in her highchair. She started pounding her little fists on the table. I laughed at her and grabbed those little strawberry banana puffs that babies love from the cabinet and dumped a few out for her. Her eyes lit up and she dug into her quick snack.
Soon, the snack was gone and she started to get fussy again. Now what? I rummaged through the cabinets until I found some baby food. The titles did not sound appealing. Would you want to eat “3 Cheese and Meat”? I grabbed the on that sounded the most appealing, which was Strawberry Banana. Grabbing a little baby spoon I started to feed her.
The door opened just as I was doing the cliché airplane and spooned food into Sabrina’s mouth. A sleepy Alison walked in with Andrew in tow.
“Good morning”
“Morning sweetie, I figured that Sabrina was still asleep because I didn’t hear any fussing coming from her room. Sorry, I would have got her if you told me.” Alison groggily said and poured a bowl of cereal for Andrew.
“It’s fine. Last night I heard her crying and I figured you needed to reset so I grabbed her and that little bed thing. She slept in my room last night. I hope that’s okay.”
“Oh thank you! I was wondering why I didn’t hear her fussing last night. It was probably the best night of sleep I’ve got in a month.” Alison smiles and hugs me.
“It’s no problem at all. If you ever want me to watch her again I’d be happy to. She’s a little angel.”
Alison laughs and shakes her head. “A little angel with horns and a tail. She can be quiet and adorable one minute, and then a crying screaming baby the next.”
I walk out of the kitchen and into the living room a little while later. Having nothing else to do, I snuggled into the couch and flipped on the tv. Let’s see, I could watch the news, cartoons, the news, cooking shows, or the news. Nothing good to pick from in this early. I logged onto Netflix and scrawled through all my possible choices. Hmm, Friends sounds good. Not caring what episode I watched, I clicked on a random one and started watching it.
I was interrupted form my comedy as a sneezing Colten walked into the room with a box of Kleenex in his hand. His hair was all over the place, eyes red, and he was in a pair of sweats and a normal white t-shirt. “What is wrong with you?”
“I just got a little cold.” Colten answered and blew his nose into a Kleenex. He was really stuffed up.
“Aww, you poor baby. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little cold. What are you doing up so early? I figured you’d take advantage of the day and sleep till noon like a normal person would." Colten said and poked my cheek.
I laughed and swatted his finger away from my face. “Says the person awake and standing right in front of me. i figured you’r take advantage of the day and sleep till noon like a normal person woluld.” I said reciting the words he just said to me.
He smiled at me. “Well, I’m not a normal person.” I smiled back at him as he took a seat on the couch next to me and we continued to watch tv. I couldn’t really hear anything over Colten sneezing or coughing every 10 seconds.
I looked over at him. “Have you taken any medicine?”
“Of course I have. It just doesn’t seem to work on me.” He said and sneezed again.
“So what do you want to do today?”
“Well, nothing to extravagant. How about just a movie day?” Colten asked.
I smiled at him. “I would love that. So what movie do you want to watch?”
“I really don’t care. We could go scary, comedy, sci-fi, a little bit of them all. Just no romantic ones.” I laughed at his answer. Why do all boys seem to hate romantic movies? They could learn a thing or two from them.
“I don’t care either. How about I go get us some food and you pick the movie?”
He nodded his head and walked over to the movie rack as I went into the kitchen to grab us some food. Grabbing a bag of popcorn I tossed it into the microwave and then started on the drinks. I grabbed two waters and then the as soon as it beeped.
“Danm!” I whispered and dropped the popcorn. It was really hot! I ran my poor finger under some water to cool it before I poured it into a bowl. Stupid popcorn for being so hot.
Walking into the living room I saw that Colten was already sprawled out on the couch with Fast Five on the tv. Really? What is with guys and this movie? I handed Colten the popcorn and set the drinks on the little table.
“Where and I supposed to sit?” I asked and raised my eyebrow.
He padded his lap and I rolled my eyes. I pushed his legs off the couch and sat down.
“Hey! What was that for?” I just smiled at him and tried to get into the movie.
Five minutes into it and I was already bored out of my mind. And cold. It seems that this house is always cold for some reason.
Colten must have seen me shivering because I felt a hand slip around my waist and bring me closer to him. My heart starting beating faster as he brought me closer and closer to him. We were now hip to hip and I could feel the heat radiating off him. He didn’t move his hand off my waist and soon started drawing little patterns into my hip bone. Not that I minded at all. It sent little tingles through my body every time.
My back was starting to heart from being in a weird tilted position, so I laid my head down in his chest and put my legs up onto the couch.
“So you can get comfy and have your legs on the couch but I can’t?” Colten whispered in my ear.
“Yup.” I said popping the ‘p’.
He laughed and turned back to the movie. I snuggled farther into his chest and breathed in his sent that was radiating off his t-shirt. Colten smelt amazing. It was some kind of cologne mixed with a hint of banana. It might sound like a crazy weird mixture, but that’s what it reminded me of. I turned my head back to the movie and tried to focus on what was going on instead of the amazing boy next to me.
***************
hey people
COMMENT, VOTE, FAN!
what did you all think? good? bad?
what about Cailey? or Holten?
thanks for reading:)
ashley<3