Asa
"Where's Cece?" Mrs. Harmon asks on Sunday morning.
"Getting ready in my room," Trixie answers, sipping on her orange juice.
All of us are at the dining table having breakfast together as a family. Yuna is in a high chair, kicking her legs happily as she eats. Shale is practically inhaling his sugary cereal as if he's trying to replenish energy that he lost yesterday. Lennon looks like she got a decent amount of sleep, eating her fruit loops and gulping down the milk while Trixie sits hungrily as she waits for her friend to come down. All I have is a cup of coffee even though I'm more wide awake than usual but Calysta looks like she's about to fall asleep in her scrambled eggs. I had offered her a mug of coffee but she rejected it, mumbling something about caffeine making her anxiety worse.
"Honey, you look like the walking dead," Mr. Harmon says as he notices her dark circles, too. "What were you doing last night?"
Calysta's eyes slowly meet mine and I feel a pang of guilt that I'm probably the reason she didn't get any sleep last night. But Lennon and I pretty much passed out within minutes. I'm torn between telling him that it's my fault because she hasn't opened her mouth yet and keeping my mouth shut since no one had noticed that I had slept in her room in the first place. I had woken up earlier than everyone else and made sure I felt no evidence of sleeping with her.
"Assignments," she said finally, her eyes dropping from mine to her breakfast plate. "I wanted to finish them early so I could have Sunday free."
"Maybe you should try to get some sleep," he tells her, going back to his newspaper.
"Maybe," she mumbles when we hear footsteps pounding down the stairs.
"Good morning, everyone!" Cece's voice makes Calysta jump and I fight the urge to smile.
"Finally," Trixie rolls her eyes. "I've been waiting for you so we can eat together."
Cece's smile falters as she looks at Trixie and I continue to watch them over my coffee mug. Cece's lips twitch back into a smile but it looks more like a grimace or as if she's trying to force herself to look happy.
"I can't," she tells Trixie. "My mom called. She wants me back home right now. I'll see you guys at school."
She turns on her heel and heads for the door, her bag pack bouncing against her back and her purse against her side. I swear hear a weird sound come from her purse and I know it's out of place because I haven't heard anything come from her purse since she entered our house on Saturday. But I ignore it and go back to my coffee as Trixie goes after her to say goodbye.
After breakfast, Calysta drags herself up to her room, looking like she's about to collapse. Lennon settles in the living room with the two younger kids, watching Pokémon reruns. Trixie escapes to her room for some alone time and I find myself sitting at the table with my own incomplete assignments as Mr. Harmon finishes up some of his paperwork and Mrs. Harmon prepares lunch. Everything is quiet except for the sound of a Pokémon gym battle from the television when Trixie flies down the stairs.
"Mom, I can't find my lithium," she says and both of them turn to shoot her questioning looks. "I looked everywhere. I can't find it."
"Okay, okay, calm down," Mrs. Harmon tells her. "Think about it clearly. When did you take your last dosage? Maybe it's in your school bag?"
"It's not in my bag!" Trixie practically screams hysterically. "I can't fucking find it!"
"Trixie! Language!" Mr. Harmon scolds but it seems to provoke her more.
"Just tell me when you last took it," Mrs. Harmon tries to cut in with her calm voice.
"I haven't taken it in a while, happy?!" she demands. "That's what you've been waiting to hear, right? That I stopped taking my meds because I didn't think I needed them. Is this some kind of sick trick to make me see that I really am crazy?"
"Trix, stop jumping to conclusions," I tell her and she turns her fiery eyes on me. "I'll go ask the girls if they've seen it-"
Trixie stomps to the living room and the rest of us follow before she can yell at him. I'm sure Yuna will start crying if she raises her voice and it isn't always easy to calm her down.
"Have any of you seen Trixie's medicine?" Mrs. Harmon asks them and Lennon mutes the television. "It's very important that none of you kids swallow any kind of medicine that isn't for you, okay?"
"I haven't seen it," Lennon tells her. "Shale doesn't step into our room and Yuna is too short to reach any of the shelves."
"If no one has seen it then where the hell is it?" Trixie demands and I grab her, pulling her out of the room before Yuna can sense any disturbance.
"Breathe," I tell her before we go up to her room to help search for it. "Try to retrace your steps. Whenever you took it last, where are the places you were most likely to keep it?"
She points at the draws of her study table, the medicine cabinet in her bathroom and the highest shelf of the bookcase. The three of us basically turn the room upside down to search for her bottle of medicine while she stands in the middle of it, her arms crossed as she thinks. Then suddenly she spins around and leaves the room while we're still looking so I follow her out. My heart practically skydives to my stomach when I notice her halfway up the stairs to the attic. I try to grab her but she's already thrown the hatch open.
"What's wrong, Trixie?" Calysta's voice comes from upstairs.
She sounds dead tired and like Trixie just woke her up again.
"Where is it?" she demands. "What the hell is it?!"
I hold my breath as I rush upstairs to find her throwing Calysta's books and other belongings across the room. I grab Calysta and pull her behind me to shield her from the flying objects and I feel her squeeze my arm.
"What are you looking for?" Calysta asks and Trixie turns to glare at us. "What's wrong with you?"
"What's wrong with me?" she asks, her voice full of venom. "I'm crazy, don't you know?"
"Trixie, what are you saying?" Calysta asks warily, completely unaware of the situation.
"Just give me my medicine before I go crazier," she deadpans, her emotions obviously all over the place. "Because I know you took it. You asked me whether I took my medicine but you knew that I haven't been taking it. You've hidden it to teach me a lesson, right? Lesson learned. Hand it over."
"I asked you more than a month ago," Calysta points out. "I didn't take your medicine. Why would I?"
"Because you want to show me that you're better than me," she spits. "You want to show me that I'm no better than a social freak because I'm a freak, too!"
"Stop it. What're you saying?" Calysta asks, sounding completely hurt. "I would never do that."
"You lying bit-" Trixie lurches forward and I shove Calysta back to keep her as far as possible.
I catch her foster sister and keep a tight grip on her wrists so she cannot move her arms at all. She struggles under my grasp but I keep my strong hold on her before dragging her back downstairs to where her foster parents stand. Mr. Harmon looks pissed but Mrs. Harmon looks extremely worried.
"I'm going to get you a new prescription," she tells her. "As long as none of the other kids swallowed any of them, it's okay. We can just get a new bottle, okay?"
Trixie looks at them, her eyes wide like a rabid animal and I wonder whether that was what I looked like when I punched Shaun. God. I hope not. Mr. Harmon takes her hand from me and takes her to her own room. She doesn't struggle and I hear him tell her that she needs to stay put in the room until her new prescription arrives, that she's grounded for not taking her medicines and for yelling at her siblings.
Calysta appears beside me as Mrs. Harmon goes to her room, coming back with her purse and keys. Her worried expression is now mixed with hurt and all we can do is nod when she tells us that she's going to buy Trixie's new medicine so we have to look after the younger kids.
"Are you okay?" I ask Calysta as she stares after her mother. "Cal?"
"Hmm?" She looks at me, dazed. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just confused is all. She just barged into my room demanding I return what's hers. I think I'm still half asleep."
The ache in my chest returns and guilt washes over me. If I hadn't begged to sleep in her room, she wouldn't be sleep deprived. I should have just sucked it up and slept on the couch. I hadn't thought about how it would affect her. I didn't think my presence would hinder her sleep that way since she had finally started opening up to me.
"Do you want to go back to sleep? I can take care of the kids," I offer but she shakes her head. "I'm sorry for not letting you sleep-"
"It wasn't because you were sleeping next to me," she says, her cheeks turning slightly pink. "It's what you said. I couldn't stop thinking about how you're trying to help me get over my social phobia. I don't understand why you're doing it."
I nod even though I don't know exactly what she feels but I can imagine how hard it must be for her to talk to people. I remember being scared when I was younger – of meeting new foster parents or siblings, of getting thrown into the system again, of being bullied by other kids. Her fear was obviously more intense than that.
"Because it's you," I say and she freezes, the redness going up to the tips of her ears. "I look at you and I see some part of myself. I don't want you to live in your fears when you have so much going for you. You're beautiful and smart and you have this amazing family. I wanted to be a part of that, not a part of your fears. Do you understand now?"
"Asa." The sound of her voice saying my name makes me heart still. "Thanks for having my back."