Fan Fiction ❯ Almost An Angel ❯ The Triumphant Return (Jealousy Rears Its Ugly Head) ( Chapter 11 )

Well. Sunday night arrived, and with it came my family. They'd disappeared without me knowing, except for the note of course, but when they came back, I was pretty sure that the entire neighborhood could hear it. Out like a shadow and in like a tornado; that's them, all right.

"Davis! Michael! Davis! Michael!" Sara shouted from downstairs. I could hear her thundering her way up the steps, and stepped out of my room to meet her. Michael came out of his room at about the same time.

"Hey, kid. Have fun?" I asked her as she collided with my legs and hugged them.

"Yup" she replied, letting go of me and bouncing around. I was sure that Sara had either eaten way too much sugar, or hadn't gotten enough sleep; like I've said before, she's usually pretty quiet.

"Heyla, kitten." Michael said from next to me, bending down and spreading his arms. Sara jumped into them with a grin, and squealed happily as he lifted her up and kissed her on the top of her head.

"Michael! I missed you!"

I got a little jealous of him when she said that. I mean, yeah, it was my fault; I probably didn't spend enough 'quality time' with her, and I knew it… But she was my little sister, not his! Blood relation has to count for something, right?

I shrugged the feeling off as fast as I could though; I'd already gotten into way too much trouble with Michael as it was, and I sure wasn't going to push my luck even further.

"Hi Davis." I looked up to see my other sister standing at the top of the stairs and grinned at her. "Hi Michael…" she added, blushing before the words even finished coming from her mouth. I started to laugh, then covered it up with a fake-sounding cough.

"Hi, Esther. Did you enjoy yourself at your grandparents' house?" Michael replied, giving her this great smile; Esther turned an even deeper shade of red, nodded, and scampered down the hall a little ways. While she was running I noticed that her pretty, light brown hair reached halfway down her back; it had grown a lot since the last time I'd actually looked at it.

"G'night… See ya'll in the morning…" she blurted, going into her bedroom and slamming the door behind her.

A few seconds later Jason appeared at the top of the stairs, a weird sort of not-quite-smile on his face. I noticed right off that he'd gotten a haircut since Friday; his hair had been getting kind of long, but now it was shaved in back, a pretty normal length on top, and his bangs were really long compared to everything else. It looked pretty good, actually.

"Nice haircut." I said, holding back the automatic 'brat' I almost tagged to the end.

He brushed back his dark brown bangs and looked suspicious. "You for real?"

"It does look good." Michael added, and Jason grinned.

"Thanks." Of course, being a typical teenager, that was just about his limit as far as family socializing went. I could understand that. "See ya." And within five seconds he was inside his room.

I felt kind of… Well, unloved. Was everyone forgetting that I was there? I mean, weren't they going to talk to me? Tell me how Grandma and Grandpa were doing? Or something? Anything?

"Michael? Davis? Would one of you please get Sara calmed down and into bed?" my Mom yelled from downstairs. That made sense; just forget about me until they need me to do something…

"I'll do it." Michael offered. "You go talk to your parents, find out how your grandparents are." Was he a mind reader, or was I that obviously upset?

"Okay. Thanks." I said. Sara cheered.

"No problem."

So they headed into Sara's room, and I went downstairs to talk to the 'rents.

~ ~ ~

It took me a while to find either one of my parents. It was like Dad had disappeared or something, but I finally found Mom coming up out of the basement and into the kitchen. She was carrying a five-pound bag of flour; I took it from her and put it on the counter.

"Hey, Mom." I said, giving her a quick hug. She smiled at me.

"Hello, honey. I heard we won the game; I'm sure the kids at your school are very happy about that. Did you have a nice time at the dance?"

"Yeah, it was okay… Michael didn't like it though, so he left early."

Mom looked surprised. "He actually went? How in the world did you talk him into going, Davis? He told me that he wasn't going to go. His exact words were something along the lines of "I'd rather be tied to the rack and tortured for a week than go to the dance," if I recall correctly."

I stared at her. Had he really been that against it? I hadn't thought so, but maybe… Whatever. The point was that I had gotten him to go. If he'd felt that strongly against it… Well. That just made it a bigger victory for me!

It occurred to me then that I'd look weird if I didn't say something. "Oh. Really? Well, yeah, he went. But like I said, he wasn't having fun, so I let him have my car and go home."

"That was nice of you, darling… But how did you get home?" I could imagine all sorts of thoughts about girls and wild parties going through Mom's head.

"James gave me a ride home. Or, I took his car and drove myself home would be more like it." I laughed at the look on her face; she knew how much James loved parties, so I couldn't blame her. "Don't worry, Mom. We went to a party, but I didn't bring it back to the house. I'm sure Michael would have killed me if I had. James had too much to drink, though, and I let him crash here for the night so he wouldn't have to drive himself home like that and risk getting himself killed in a car crash."

Mom sighed and shook her head. "He's a good boy, James, but if he doesn't learn a little self-control, he's never going to get very far in this world."

"Not unless he becomes a pro football player, you mean."

"Why do you say that?"

"Come on, Mom. When's the last time you heard about a pro having self-control anywhere except the football field?"

She smiled and we both laughed. It was the truth, after all, and sad as it was, it was still funny.

"Anyways," I said, once we'd both finally caught our breaths. "How are Grandma and Grandpa? I couldn't get anything useful out of the brats when I asked them."

Forgetting about whatever it was she had planned on doing with the flour, Mom walked over to the kitchen table and sat down, waiting for me to join her. Once I did, she smiled and started talking her head off. The topic changed after a few minutes, but she kept talking to me anyways.

I didn't feel quite so forgotten then.