A few hours later, the remaining of the Boise family was on the road to their new house. Their flight had gone on without any problems. A friend of their father brought them a car at the airport. It was blue. Yasmine and Elroy cringed at the color. It brought back memories of the time they had decided to paint their parents' room for their anniversary. They had settled on the color blue. They had made a mess of the place and their parents made them clean up and dip into their savings to pay for a professional painter to redo their room.
"Are we there yet?" Elroy asked for the umpteenth time. He was in a foul mood because Yasmine had once again beat him to the front seat.
"We'll wake you when we get there. You can sleep." Jason Boise said looking at his son through the rearview mirror. No doubt from the look on his face he was still contemplating how to break it to Amy that if she was uncomfortable with long-distance relationships, they should break up.
Elroy sighed and placed his phone in the space between the two front seats. He squeezed his body onto the seat and sighed again. A few minutes later, he was fast asleep and snoring.
They remained in silence with Yasmine, the radio playing a mix in the background. Yasmine looked back at her snoring brother and a small smile graced her features. "I am glad he is asleep, he has not been getting enough sleep." She took her small brown blanket from her backpack and stretched over to the backseat to cover him with it. It only covered from his neck to his knees, but it was enough for now.
"I thought you didn't know." Jason nodded agreeing with her statement. His youngest son would wake up at odd hours and stay downstairs. He claimed he was alright, but Jason Boise knew better. He had also lost his father when he was younger thus he could say he understood the pain his children were going through.
"I hear him leaving his room and when I wake up, he is sleeping on the couch with the t.v on."
It had been like that ever since their mother had been hospitalized. Yasmine refrained from joining him because he detested people seeing him when he was vulnerable. Of the three siblings, he was the hardest to talk to. He showed his emotions to his immediate family only.
"What are we going to do for his birthday? It was the day after mom died and it completely slipped my mind. Now I feel guilty." Yasmine said and her father looked over at her.
"Don't be worried about that. We only need to buy him as much meat as he can stuff into his stomach and all will be forgiven."
"I guess that can work," Yasmine shrugged and let the silence fill the space. A rock song was playing in the background.
Her eyes wandered to the scenery flying outside. There were a lot of trees making her wonder where exactly her father was taking them. When she had asked, she was told she should not worry her pretty little mind. They were going back to his hometown, where he and her mother had met. Apart from that, Yasmine knew nothing about his hometown. He never spoke of it, and they had never met any family from his side. The only uncle they knew of was deep in the Amazon forest.
"You can sleep as well. I will wake you when we get there."
Yasmine nodded and she let her eyes fall shut. She allowed the soft hum of their car to lull her to sleep.
Yasmine awoke when her body hit the hard ground and something poked her side. When traveling, she had a tendency of sleeping with her body supported by the car door, so when Elroy opened the car door, she had fallen out and onto the ground.
She groaned as she pushed her body up. Elroy stood a small distance from her as he held his stomach in silent laughter. "I better not catch you," Yasmine said as she rubbed the sore spot on her shoulder, "because if I do, you are so dead."
She got to her feet just as Elroy ran from the door and into the house. It was a two-story house that was painted white and brown on the outside. Yasmine passed her father who was setting down boxes in the hallway. "Don't kill your brother Yas," he shouted after her.
"I'll try not to." She shouted back at him. He stared after her as she disappeared into the hallway. Both their footsteps echoed in the silent house. This caused a small smile to pull his lips up at the sides.
Yasmine ran after her brother who had run to their backyard. He hid behind a tree that stood to the left of the yard. It was a terrible attempt at hiding and Yasmine smiled widely as she sneaked up on his still laughing frame. His shoulders shook as he laughed, causing him to completely miss Yasmine's presence.
"Boo!" she spoke in a loud voice just next to his ear which caused him to let out a small shriek-like scream. He turned back to her, with his nose pulled up in the middle, causing it to crinkle up close to his forehead, and his mouth opened wide as he screamed. She laughed at the face and sound he made. "You should have seen your face."
He pouted slightly but rolled his eyes his lips tugging up into a smile. It was good seeing his second elder sister laugh even though it was at his expense. Out of the three of them, she rarely smiled, and of late since their mother's death, she didn't at all.
"Let us go pick the rooms. The first one up the stairs gets the bigger room."
"That hardly seems fair. You have longer legs." she stared pointedly at his feet. Most of his height was concentrated on his feet.
"I'll give you a headstart?" he smirked knowing he was going to win either way.
Yasmine raised a brow, then lowered her body. although she couldn't call herself a sports fanatic, she could at least say that she could hold herself up in a short race without collapsing.
Before they could lay out more rules, she had bounded up the steps that led to the backdoor. Thus she got into the house before him. "That cheater," he muttered under his breath before running to catch up with her.
In the end, Yasmine was the one who won the bigger room, leaving Elroy to sulk the whole evening as they unpacked their belongings.
Seeing as the house already had furniture they had less work to do. Seeing as none of them had much of an appetite, Elroy made them a few sandwiches which were their dinner.
Thanks to this, Yasmine had a chance to explore their new house. The color scheme ranged from different shades of brown to warm tones of blue yellow and green. It had five bedrooms with each bedroom having a different color scheme.
There were three bedrooms upstairs and two downstairs. In addition to this, the bedrooms upstairs had their own bathrooms. It was a much simpler house than their previous home, although it was quite big for three people, Yasmine still liked it.
At half-past ten, they placed their small amount of used dishes in the sink to be washed the next day and went to their separate rooms. Yasmine took a shower and made her bed before tossing all the clothes she had pulled yet to pull out of her suitcase into her closet together with the suitcase. She would need to wake up early in the morning to arrange her things.
Her head throbbed as she thought of all the work she would have to do. She picked up her purple backpack from the floor and hang it on a hook that was beside the head of her bed. The bell that hung on the bag jingled a tune lightly as she turned off the lights and sunk into the covers. She forced herself to relax, and closed her eyes, listening to the silence of their new home.
Nevertheless, she fell into a dreamless sleep.
Silence descended into the house, and the lights in the other two rooms were switched off a few minutes later.
In the middle of the night, a few hours after Yasmine had turned in, the doors to her bedroom were pushed open softly. The noise of the slightly rusted door hinges she needed to oil later in the day roused her from her dreamless sleep. She blinked her eyes slowly before raising her head to look at the tall figure that had sneaked into her room. He stood beside her bed holding his pillow in his hand.
Without uttering a word, she had moved to make space for him on her bed.
Elroy squeezed into her bed, cuddling his elder sister as he had done when they were younger and she was taller than he was. He pulled his legs close to his body as she rested her head above his own head and played with his hair.
He did not like sleeping in new places and never did well when he went for sleepovers at a friend's house. Due to this, most sleepovers when he wanted to hang out with friends were conducted at their place when he was younger. Yasmine ran a hand through his thick brown locks.
"Couldn't sleep?" she asked and he replied with a slow nod. He rubbed his head into her palm, allowing her to rub his head even more. "Thinking about mom again?" he shook his head furiously before pausing and nodding his head slowly. Yasmine smiled softly, glad that he had finally shown her his true feelings. "I'm here for you, El." She sunk her head into his hair, and took in a deep breath, taking in the scent that was unique to her younger brother.
Elroy did not answer her, but his shoulders shook and he lightly sniffled, causing Yasmine to realize he was crying. She slowly patted his back with her free hand and let his tears soak her nightshirt. He had not cried during their mother's funeral, nor had he cried a week later, nor had he cried two weeks later, even though he had been the closest to their mother as the last born child. He had been trying to be strong for his sisters, even though he was the youngest child.
Yasmine's heart ached for her brother. The reason he had come to her room was probably because there was no television he could watch to drown out his feelings, nor was there network to use his phone. Still, she was glad.
Elroy, for the first time since their mother's death, cried himself to sleep. Yasmine continued to pat his hair and rub his back not wanting to wake him from his slumber. His soft snores filled the quiet room. They had survived this, and they were going to survive anything the world threw at them.