"Della!!"
She covered her face with the spare pillow, rolling on her front on the bed.
She knew that it would not take long before her mother would come inside, barging through the door, eating away the leftover quietness in the room.
"Oh come on now! Wake up!!"
There and there, it happened right away as Beth got in, without care to knock on the door before coming in.
She threw the pillow off and it did hit her mother who dodged it away, getting used to it by then.
"What time is it?"
She rubbed her eyes as her mother walked to the other side and drew off the curtains, opening the window, letting the sun rays enchant the room.
"Six..."
"Mama!! School is not before eight!!"
Adella groaned out. Her mother had been calling out to her as if she was going to be late when it was the total opposite case.
She must have gotten used to it by then because, for the past seventeen years, it had always been the same.
"But you take more than an hour to get ready."
Beth defended herself. Della rolled her eyes. Those words...the same words, by then imprinted in her mind.
"Now hurry up! Get up. I have the breakfast ready."
Della did not bother to follow her mother until she invited herself to open her closet and rummage through it.
"I can get my clothes."
"Well, I do not want you to dress like a hippie on the first day after summer."
Beth pulled out a simple, flower-printed white blouse.
"I'm not going to the church, mama!"
"Where are that jeans I got you last Christmas?"
Beth continued to look into the closet, even though it was getting on her daughter's nerves.
"There...your dress for the day!"
She put down the top and the jeans on top of the study chair and turned to look at her daughter, who was still laying flat on the bed, the duvet up to her neck.
"Della!"
Her face turned sour at the sight and Della knew that it was time, even if she did not want it.
"Get up. I'm dropping you off at seven."
Another huge groan erupted from her dry throat as her mother walled out of the room, closing the door behind her.
More than her mother, she used to ride with the Randall kids to school. And she was hoping for it to be the same on her first day of senior year.
Although in rare cases, her mother would tag along it would be the Randalls and everyone in the school had come to know that she was a part of their family.
Staring out the window and sitting up on the bed, finally, she decided to get up and head to shower and get fresh before her mother would send another search team to get her down for breakfast.
Stepping inside the shower, she could not help but wonder about what was to come next. How would the day unfold?
He would be there for sure. Unlike the summer, when he had gone missing the entirety of it.
Every summer since she had known and come to understand about it, had been spent with Randall and with him.
They said that he and her were like the magnet and the nail, always together, everywhere, inseparable.
But something had changed over the past four years. As she got out of middle school, the parting was heartbreaking. He still had a year left.
That very year, her mother had surprised her with an unheard-of grandfather, who suddenly appeared and wanted the help of his daughter whom he had disowned a long time ago.
"Why do we even have to go?"
"He never bothered to check up on you for so long!!"
Beth went around packing their bags, getting ready to head to Philly right away.
"Because he is my father, Della. And he needs me."
She had said, looking straight into her daughter's eyes. For years, growing up, she had always made it clear that there was no family, just her and Della.
"Or you are just too desperate about the idea of him needing you."
Those were some deep words that she had spat out to her mother too late down the road, but it made sense to Beth only then.
Six months away from Richmond, from the home she knew, from Randalls and him...all the changes that had taken place hit her only after returning.
At the time of Christmas, the holidays almost going to be over, but excited that she was going to see him back in school, and be back together again.
"Here comes your missing sister, Shawn!"
The pineapple popsicle dropped off from her hold, which was for him as a token of apology for disappearing without a goodbye.
Looking up at him. He had grown an inch or two taller, standing about a foot away from him and his group of friends...she knew none of them.
And those words still haunt her peaceful mind, almost on the verge of driving her crazy.
"Was that for me as an apology token?"
She turned around to see him, standing behind her, closing the locker shut. She left without a word after that.
He was holding the fallen popsicle. He had seen her after all. She thought that he did not.
Her eyes analyzed his face from the smooth surface of his temple to the tip of his nose, the red full lips, his forest green orbs, that he had inherited from his beautiful mother, then staring back at her too and she had not realized.
She looked away, her cheeks heating up in the shades of scarlet. It felt different, not like the olden times when they used to be just kids.
"I deserve another piece."
He chuckled at her and she could not help up bite her lips hard, not matching eyes with his bold ones.
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To the readers, who did not get it, there is a transition in the same chapter from the present to the past and versa.