The most popular ideas seemed to be 1 and 5. Since I wasn't sure how I was going to work out a Spashley story based on a skewed version of Romeo and Juliet, I'm going with Runt of the Litter.

Happy Reading.


1. Meet the Litter

The light hurts. Under the covers, now.

What am I doing? Where am I? What's that sound? Why can't I move?-

Deep breaths. Easy.

Carefully, I brush the offending sheets off and shield my eyes from the harsh LA sun. Daily panic endured, I proceed to the dresser on my side of the attic. What am I wearing? Blouse, jeans, dress, socks, underwear, bra, sweatpants, jacket, turtleneck-. Okay, focus. It's summer. T-shirt and shorts, like you've been wearing for the past two and a half months. Then, it's off to the bathroom that smells like shampoo and was probably only recently vacated. Double-checking the chart on the mirror, I take my pills, and shower. Continuing with my daily routine, I wind up in the kitchen, opening the left cabinet facing the window.

The TV in the living room is broadcasting Imus which must mean Joe is watching it in his boxers and T-shirt while working on his laptop. I've never understood how Imus was ever funny. He's a boring guy in a cowboy hat if you ask me.

Where is my Honey Bunches of Oats?

Several more seconds are wasted rifling before it occurs to me that maybe we've run out. I stop for a moment at this and then look at what else we have in the cabinet. Next, I check the refrigerator. After that, the basket of assorted food on the counter.

"Do you want to split a muffin?"

"What?" I spin around wildly and notice Talise sitting at the small kitchen table with a towel on her head and a book. "Oh, it's you."

"Sorry," she apologizes. "I did call your name a few times when you came in though," she adds a little defensively.

"I only heard the TV in the other room," I offer as an explanation.

"Figures you'd hear Dad and his cowboy," she mutters. Should I explain? Let's leave it at, Talise is my stepsister. I have other siblings and a mess of a family. Joe is my stepfather. The rest of the family is negible- uh, negligin- ack- neg-li-gi-ble. (I hate that word.) Okay, maybe they're somewhat important, but I don't like most of my family so I'm not mentioning them until it's absolutely necessary. "Do want the muffin or not?"

"Yeah." We both eat in silence for several minutes. I fumble with the paper on the muffin, and Talise reaches over to help me but stops when I glare at her. Despite this setback, I still finish first because Talise is reading her book.

"Umm..." I begin. She looks up. "Are we going or not?" It's the last day before school starts, and I'm going to take my driver's test today. The book closes with in a flutter of pages and a sigh.

"Look, Ashley, I still don't think this a good idea."

"Why not? We've been over this a thousand times Talise." I say, frustrated.

"And yet somehow it doesn't penetrate that thick skull of yours. What if you have a seizure when you're driving? You could kill someone."

"I know when they're coming. I'll pull off to the side of the road. " My hands are clenched into fists.

"Then, what? What if you have another big one and you don't have time to call for help?"

"What if you have a spasmadic foot cramp? For God's sake, do you think I want to have to ask you for a ride to the beach every few days? It's been almost a year since I had a seizure. Dr. Sherman's already signed the forms." We've spent the entire summer preparing for this, and she's going to bail on me now? At this point, I'm pacing back and forth. I'm eighteen. I want to drive and be free. "You might be okay with living in your parents' house for the rest of your life, but I'm getting out of here once I finish high school if I have to walk!"

"Will you be practical for once? You know that with your-"

"You're exactly like everyone el-else. You can act l-like y-your better, but you same. Think I not good... second..." I grasp for syntax and grammar and pronunciation, but my speech is falling apart. That brings me close to angry tears. Slamming my fist on the table, I push out away from the table and storm up the stairs.

From the room I share with Talise I can hear Joe faintly snapping at her over "causing disturbances at 8A.M.", managing to cause another in the process. I burrow into the darkness of my sheets. In my ticked off mood, they're too rough, and I kick them off, snarling. Joe and Talise might as well be right in front of me. If they were in front of me this wouldn't be so bad. Joe must be screaming his silly head off, and Talise is probably giving him her cold look because I don't hear her anymore. The more I try to ignore it, the more prominently his voice rings in my head which doesn't help my mood.

Sensory integration dysfunction is one of the most annoying symptoms of Dravet's Syndrome. The seizures scare people, but on a daily basis my senses mess me up more these days. I've gone through lots of therapy to increase my tolerance, but it doesn't go away completely. Basically, my brain doesn't know how to organize all my senses, so I'll be more aware of a conversation across the room, or get annoyed by television when I'm trying to sleep even if no one else can hear Joe's stupid show. When I was younger, my moth-. Well, my mother isn't worth mentioning. Why don't we leave it at, I don't always seem to act rationally, especially when I'm angry.

I hear footsteps so Talise must be in the room again, but I'm not looking up from my furious, determined pacing.

"Are we going or not?" I look up upon hearing the words. She's just standing there, looking slightly awkward.

"I guess," I respond, refusing to sound happy.

As we're walking out the front door, Talise blurts out with air of somebody who has been waiting to say something for a long time, "Spasmadic foot cramps? Really, Ashley?" I shrug sheepishly. "The word is spasmodic by the way."

"Crucify me why don't you," I mutter.


Grinning widely, I pull the car into our driveway. I haven't been able to stop since I got my driver's license.

"You know 'grinning from ear to ear' is just an expression, right? You're not actually supposed to do it," Talise grumbles peevishly.

I smirk. "You're just annoyed because I was right, for once."

"'For once' being the operative words."

"And jealous that I'm a better driver," I cackle in a sing-song way.

"How do you figure that?"

"Because I can parallel park, and you just glare at the steering wheel." She grunts something unintelligible, and my grin only widens. It's getting almost painful now. After my very successful driving test, we decided to enjoy the last day of summer for all it's worth. Technically, college has already started for Talise, but she didn't have any classes today.

We're just back in time for the dinner that my mother, who is such a "family woman", "made". By "made", I mean she told the cook exactly what she wanted all the food to look and taste like and then spent the next hour or so selecting the perfect bottle of wine. Joe comes in a few minutes later in a suit, which shows that he must have gotten his ass off his rocking chair sometime around noon and actually gone to the office.

"Such a beautiful dinner, Christy," he simpers to my mother. Am I the only one who ever thinks he sounds phony?

Kyla's setting plates on he table, and Ben is "helping" the poor cook. Aiden enters with a bit of a strut, and Waldo follows a few minutes later, having probably been playing video games all day.

"Tali, dear," my mother calls mellifluously (see? I know big words) out to "Tali", who hates nicknames almost as much as she hates being called "dear". "Would you give everybody a glass?"

Suppressing an eye roll, Talise makes her way over to the wine cabinet. "No problem, mother. And if you would call me Talise that would be great."

"Of course, dear," is the response when we all know that tomorrow she'll do the exact same thing. Talise calls my mother "mother". The story goes that a five-year old Talise once asked Christine what she was supposed to call her. My mother, being the charitable saint that she is, told her, "why call me mother of course", and since then, Talise has dutifully referred to her "mother" even though it makes her sound like she's living in the 1700's. I don't call my mother much of anything. Occasionally, "Christine" in my head, but I've never actually needed to address her with a name as far as I can remember.

Aiden bumps into me with the silverware and gives me smiles smugly when my mother shoots me a look.

"If you're not going to do anything, stay out of the way, Ashley," she tells me. I've been hearing that for many years now, so I ignore it with skill. Christine has two basic ways to deal with "my condition" on any given day. Number one: pretend, as far as is humanly possible, that it doesn't exist. Number two: pretend that I don't exist as far as is humanly possible.

Finally, we all begin eating. The seating plan goes as follows: Joe on one end of the table, with Aiden on his right, followed by Talise and me. My mother is on the other end of the table and to her right is Kyla, then Ben, and at last Waldo.

"How was the office, Joey?" my mother asks.

"Now, wait till you hear this. This lady just came...". I'm too busy trying to get a good grip on these new knives, The handles are irritating. There's this weird part jutting out, and I can't really grip it to cut my veal. "And then she..." Joe just keeps going on and on about this woman who he says was basically screwing the government, his watery blue eyes wide and his balding head bobbing as he tells his story, as though this is the most... the best thing we've heard all day. No, Joe, you don't twist laws all the time. Joe helps people deal with their insurance companies, and that's all I care enough to know about. He's not a criminal lawyer. Criminal lawyers don't make as much money.

We "listen" to this story for fifteen minutes before Joe takes a long pause. "How about you Kyla?" Christine asks. Joe looks like he had more to say, but shuts up to listen to Kyla.

"Well, other than the freshmen, there are only six new students this year." Kyla said. "This girl though, her brother and her just moved in fromOhio.

Under her breath, Talise mutters, "she and her brother". No one hears her, but me of course. Waldo is playing with his knife, seeing how far it will flex while Aiden and Joe talk about law. Aiden chose to follow in daddy's footsteps become a big shot lawyer this year.

"She's so pretty though," Kyla continues babbling about the new girl at her private school. Ben looks up. It's his New Year's Resolution to get a girlfriend this year even if it means stealing his twin sister's latest crush. All year they've been competing in vain because in the end the girl doesn't choose either one of them. Kyla, who's bisexual, will like a pretty girl, and then Ben will decide that he likes the same girl. As far as I can tell, they've always been like this. Kyla gets good grades, so Ben tries to get better ones and so on and so forth.

He hasn't even seen whoever this girl is yet, but he'll go after her just because Kyla likes her. The only reason Kyla's met this girl already is because she's on the Eckhardt's Academy's school committee and was giving tours around the school while Talise and I were having ice cream.

Eckhardt's is a big, fancy private school that you actually have to be smart to get into. In other words, every kid in this family, except me, goes there or has been there. Instead, I go to King High and ignore the fact that the faucet water is yellow.

My knife refuses to cooperate, and I give up. Stabbing the pork chop viciously with my fork, I use my teeth to try and rip pieces off.

"Ashley, be civilized and use your knife." Amazing, Christine actually does notice me sitting right next to her occasionally. She forgets in the next moment though, and asks, "How was your day, Tali?".

Another eye roll successfully fought off before Talise replies, "good," and returns to her pork chop. I'm settling for salad at this point.

"Now don't be shy, and tell us about your day," my mother cajoles. You'd think that after eleven years, she would learn that, for Talise, food is more important than conversation.

"I took Ashley to get her driving test, went to the beach, and had an ice cream," Talise says with a stifled sigh.

The salad dressing is just plain weird, but force my unruly taste buds to tolerate it.

"And how did your test go, Ashley?" I'm surprised that she even said anything to me. Remember, swallow then talk.

"I passed and-"

"That's nice," my mother says and turns to ask Waldo how far he's gotten on Halo-something, (what is it anyways now? 15?).

As usual, my mother makes some comment about us all being such a wonderful family. That makes my blood boil. It always does and always will. We are not all one big wonderful family at all. Joe is not my father. I love my Dad. He calls me every night even though he's on tour. Christine likes to blame their divorce on his singing career, but as far as I'm concerned, that's just to cover up the fact that she was cheating on him.

Here's the family story: Aiden and Talise are twins from Joe's first marriage. They have the similar dark hair, carved features, and clear gray eyes. Their mother died after giving birth, but not before naming them "little fire" and "beautiful water" respectively. The two now "spend the rest of our lives getting our names butchered by the ignorant population" according to Talise. Aiden's a jerk and Talise is a grammar Nazi.

Only a few months after the twins' birth, my mother, award-wining actress and model Christine Woods, had me with my father, rock star Raife Davies. I was born with Dravet's syndrome and had my first seizure at 5 months. While I've never been told this in so many words, I'm pretty sure that for my mother, who was never a baby person to begin with, this was the last straw. She began an affair not long after with widower Joseph Dennison. An affair that lasted 7 years and resulted in the births of Kyla, Benjamin, and Wallace Dennison (though Kyla prefers to take her/my mother's name).

All three are smart. Kyla's nice to everyone, so I don't trust her sincerity. Ben tries to be better than everyone and usually fails. There was another Wally in Waldo's kindergarten class, so we started calling him Waldo. (Talise thinks it makes him sound like the family dog.) He's technology smart. Good with anything that has metal in it.

During her seven year affair, the loving Christine Davies always made sure to take care of her secret brood, including those who weren't related to her by blood. Of course she left diaper changing to the nurses, but she was always "there for them". As a result, she was never there for me. When my mother was playing housewife at the Dennison house, I was left at the Davies estate with an army of "help" and, whenever he could wangle some time off, my father.

Dad only ever cared if I was okay, which let him turn a blind eye to the fact that my mother was always mysteriously pregnant. He taught me music on guitar, piano, and drums. He also taught me to practice every day so my mother was pleasantly surprised when she was left with her musical prodigy after the divorce. Even if I hated light, bounced off the walls, and went into "staring spells", I was still part of her showcase brood.

Then, when I was nine, the "big one" struck. A full on tonic-clonic, grand mal, whatever you want to call it seizure happened. The type that everyone associates with epilepsy, and I was stuck in status epilepticus for over an hour which isn't good for your brain. Afterwards, I lost a lot of fine motor and language skills. Apparently, I was lucky. I gave up trying to coordinate my fingers on any instrument after that. Dad took an entire year off to make sure that I would be okay. I couldn't even get dressed on my own. In the end, withdrawn and careful Talise ended as my assistant. Everyone else had too much going on in their lives to take care of a girl who could barely speak anymore. If it was anyone else, I'd say that giving a nine-year old responsibility for her epileptic sister is funny. We weren't a perfect match, but we managed to make it work for nine years. With time, therapy, and Talise's inner grammar Nazi, I made it at least back to school, even if I'm two years behind and in all the lowest classes. I still struggle to learn new things, but at least when I finish high school, I'll be fairly independent.

Somehow, out of all of this Christine Woods became a hero for women neglected by their husbands. She and Joe became the poster parents for the perfect balance of family and success. It makes me sick.

That is our wonderful family.

Feel free to barf anytime.