Finding Acceptance

Disclaimer: I do not own "The Covenant" or any of its characters; I only own Peyton and Allison.

Chapter 3

Our first week in Ipswich wasn't very eventful; I spent most of my time lying in bed sick. Allie stuck around to make sure that I was okay. The third day that I was lying in bed sick, I told her to go out with Pogue and the others. She obliged, but made sure I was settled in before she left with them. I tossed and turned in bed all night, not seeming to get comfortable. By the following weekend, I had regained enough strength to get up and move around.

So now, I'm sitting on the couch in the living room of the manor. Mom and dad had left this morning, something about having to go to the bank and run some errands before they got home; Allie and the others had already left by the time I woke up.

I heard the front door open and heard the hushed voices of Allie, Pogue, and Kate. The door closed a moment later and then more voices chimed in. Footsteps approached the room and then the voices got a bit louder as they all walked in. They continued to talk until Pogue turned his head to see me sitting on the couch.

"Hey, Peyton. You sure you should be up and around?" he greeted, gaining everyone else's attention. They all stopped talking and looked at me on the couch. Allie came over and sat down on one side of me. Kate sat down on the other side and Sarah sat down in the chair next to the couch we were on. Caleb, Reid, and Tyler took seats in the chairs around the room.

I watched as Pogue went over to the TV stand and opened the glass door to the access the DVD player. He turned to look at me, "Are you watching the TV?" I shook my head and watched Tyler throw a brown messenger bag to him. He opened the bag and pulled out a stack of DVDs. Okay, I'm officially confused.

Kate must have seen my expression because she began to explain to me. "It's movie day today. Every weekend we choose different things to do, this weekend is for movies." She told me. "Usually we switch up locations; one weekend we might hang out at Tyler's house, the next weekend Caleb's, the week after that here, and then we repeat the cycle."

The surround sound turned on and the sound blasted throughout the living room and all of us girls covered our ears. We heard the guys laughing as my brother turned down the master volume. I picked up a small cushion and launched it at Reid's head since he was laughing the hardest. It whacked him in the head and bounced off, hitting Tyler as well. Kate was trying to hold in her laughter, but was unsuccessful. All of us girls started laughing as Reid and Tyler looked at us.

Reid took the cushion from Tyler's hands and threw it back at me. I caught the cushion and laughed triumphantly, putting my arms over it. The credits began playing and Allie clapped her hands together. "Yay!" she cheered. "Saw five!" I laughed at my sister, and settled into watching the beginning with them. Pogue moved over to the windows and pulled the curtains shut, making the room darken. Caleb walked into the living room with two bowls of popcorn; I hadn't even realized he left the room. He handed a bowl of the popcorn to us girls and went to sit back down in his chair near the guys.

I nudged Kate, making motions for her to nudge Sarah. She did so and Sarah looked at me. "Why aren't you sitting with your boyfriend?" I asked. Her cheeks flushed a light red and she got to her feet, moving over to Caleb. She settled in between his legs on the floor and she smiled at me from her new spot. I nudged Kate again, getting her attention. "Go sit with Pogue." I whispered. She nodded and made her way to my brother, sitting next to him on the second loveseat in the room. I moved into Kate's previous spot, making room in between my sister and I.

I heard the soft thud of wood and looked over to see Tyler shutting the sliding door to the living room. There was no light inside the room now, the perfect atmosphere for a scary movie. I saw Allie moving her legs around and then she stretched them out and set them across my lap. I turned my attention back to the movie and began to feel myself getting sucked into it.

Six movies and four bowls of popcorn later, the sliding door was opened. We were in the middle of watching 'Halloween H20' and Pogue pressed pause on the controller so we could all look to see who was interrupting. All of the parents stood in the doorway, looking around at all of us as we sat there, trying to let our eyes adjust to the light.

"Why hasn't anyone answered the phone?" our mom asked.

I looked at Allie as she looked at me, and I saw Pogue scratching his head. "None of us have been out of this room in a couple of hours. We left the phones out there in the hallway and we shut our cell phones off." He told her.

"What are you kids doing?" Mr. Simms asked, looking at his son.

Tyler looked at all of us and then back at his father. "We've been having our movie day all day long." Mr. Simms and all the other fathers laughed.

"I guess we'll leave you to keep watching your movies." Mr. Garwin stated. The mothers all followed our mom to our father's den and the fathers stuck around for a couple more minutes. Pogue and the rest of us ignored them as they shut the door and stood near it. He pressed play and the movie began playing again, picking up where it left off.

It was pretty peaceful as we sat there watching our movie; the only thing that was getting frustrating were the fathers standing near the door. After a while of being in the room, and I'm pretty sure they were watching Allison and me, the door opened a crack and they all exited. Allison looked at me and I just shrugged my shoulders, as we turned our attention back to the TV.

Around ten o'clock we ended up getting hungry and ordered pizza. We waited until the pizzas were delivered to continue with our movies. I stood up and stretched, feeling my joints pop in protest for sitting so long. Allison and I excused ourselves from the living room to use the bathroom and went upstairs. Allie used the bathroom first and then I went; when we were done, we walked to my room and went inside. I went to my dresser, grabbing a pair of grey jogging sweats and a grey tank top out of it. My twin sat at my desk, flipping through the scrapbook I'd unpacked from my things the night we'd gotten here.

I changed quickly and threw my clothes in the dirty hamper. I walked over to my sister and looked at the page she had stopped on. It was a picture of us and our aunt and uncle; to the unobserved eye it did make us look quite like them. In the picture we were all standing together, smiles on our faces, as we spent the day at one of the art museums. "Li manco…" (I miss them) she whispered in Italian.

I wrapped my arm around her and put my head against hers. "So che. Li manco anche, ma loro dentro un posto migliore ora. Un posto senza piu suffering." (I know you do. I miss them too, but they're in a better place now. A place with no more suffering.) I told her.

Hearing the door to the room click, I turned to see Kate and Sarah walking in. "Are you guys okay?" Sarah asked. I nodded my head to them.

"Yeah. She just misses our parents." I spoke, hoping that Kate would catch on and not slip up. Thankfully she did, and she just nodded her head, coming over to us with Sarah.

They looked down and saw the picture she was looking at. "Is that them?" Kate questioned. I nodded my head, looking at my twin as a tear escaped the corner of her eye.

"Il passato é il passato. Non possiamo cambiare quello, Allison. Il la cosa migliore che possiamo fare é di imparare passarli e mantenere nei nostril cuori e nelle nostre memorie." (The past is the past. We cannot change that, Allison. The best we can do is learn to move on and keep them in our hearts and our memories.) I told her. She nodded her head and shut the scrapbook, getting to her feet.

Kate, Sarah and I waited as Allison wiped her cheeks. She walked over to us and we left the room. Allison, being the last one out the door, turned off the light and then shut the door behind her. We walked back downstairs and into the living room, the boys coming in behind us. Tyler shut the door behind him as we all took our seats again and Pogue put in another movie.

Reid set the pizzas on the coffee table and opened the boxes while Caleb set down paper plates and a twelve pack of Coke. Moments later, we were continuing our movie watching marathon.

Hope you enjoyed the sort of "bonding" chapter between them all. Don't forget to review!