Black Rose
A/N: Hi again! Thanks for my great reviews, you guys really are encouraging and I hope that you'll all stick with me until the end here! Please know that your reviews are always read and any advice or constructive criticism will be taken into account so that I can do all in my power to make this story appealing to you! Anyway, here's chapter five! Amy's back home now, but what will it be like? Eh, why'm I askin you? I freakin wrote it! Lol, anyway, I'm hoping to try to get four reviews this time before I update again, but more would always be awesome! It's up to you the readers to decide whether or not I meet my quota, so click that magical little button of happiness at the end of the chapter! Okay, so today's song is Better off Alone (Home) by Three Days Grace. It's a really good song, though not immensely relevant to the chapter, that I suggest listening to preceding, during, or after this chapter (your choice if any). If, by the way, anyone has any song suggestions, I can always try to find a good place for them and might even write a whole new chapter just for it if I like it enough! I do already have this story pretty much fully written and songs for all chapters, but you guys may have even better ones! Anyway, enjoy the (not so) glorious chapter 6!
Chapter 6-House, Not a Home
We drove all day and into the night, arriving home around 3 or 4 in the morning, considering we lived practically on the other side of the planet. I was half asleep when we got there, so Brian carried me into the house. It was like a dream or more likely a nightmare, seeing everything almost exactly as it was when I left.
He carried me to the living room and set me on the same torn up, lumpy couch that I remembered from years ago. It was a Friday night, so that meant that no one would have to be sleeping in their own rooms. That meant that the couch was probably the only available spot anyway, so I blocked out all the wretched thoughts of this place that crept into my mind and drifted back into obliviousness.
I woke up early the next morning, about 6:00. I didn't allow myself to go back to sleep, as to not be up after any of the others. Instead, I wiped the sleep out of eyes and took a good look around the room. It was just like a flashback, only infinitesimal differences here and there. The coffee table was balancing on three legs and a lot of duct tape, the couch needed to be re-stuffed and upholstered, and the room desperately needed to be cleaned and vacuumed.
I got up and decided to evaluate the other rooms of the house. It was a two-story house, not including the basement or attic, and had a living room, kitchen, two and a half bathrooms, and 6 bedrooms. I had used to share the attic as a bedroom with Lindsey and Brian and our Dad had their own rooms (Dad used to share one with Mom, but now he probably just kept it to himself). The other four rooms were divided up as a nursery for the kids aged 3 and under, another room for ages 4-6, one for the boys over 6, and another for girls. The basement was a restricted zone on account of it always being flooded. It was mostly underground and whenever it rained, the water would get in through a cracked window, so it was either flooded or had water damage all year long. We had a large, fenced-in backyard and lived on a not-so-busy street, so the front yard was also an available spot for play-time. Or at least, that's how I remembered everything.
I walked around the house, peeking quietly into bedrooms to see how bad the messes were (very bad) and discovered the bedrooms were still divided how I remembered them. The kitchen had piles of dirty dishes and the cabinet needed to be cleaned out and re-stocked. It also needed a good sweep/mopping and for the table legs to be tightened. The fridge needed the same attention as the cabinets and the freezer needed to be defrosted. As for the bathrooms, they were in pretty decent shape other than lack of towels and for the sinks to be scrubbed. The laundry room was overflowing with dirty garments to a point where you had to wade through them, so I went ahead and put a load of them into the washer and folded some from the dryer.
My evaluation of the house was complete, my conclusion being that it would take me all week to get everything cleaned up, and that's if I were staying home all day every day and doing nothing but clean. I thought about Lindsey and everything she did to keep the house running (cooked, cleaned, and helped everyone keep track of their laundry) and broke it down into chronological priorities. If I started dishes now, I might have enough done by the time everyone woke up for breakfast. Then I could cook whatever was about to go bad before it had the chance to. It was Saturday, so I might be able to convince Brian to get everyone out of the house so I could work on the kitchen and laundry and have the old food cleaned out by the time they got back. I could get Brian or Dad to take off the garbage and I could go to the store to get some good food for tomorrow, but I wasn't sure if I could fit all that into today.
I started by loading the dishwasher to maximum capacity and getting it started. Then I hand-washed all the things too big for the dish-washer. I had just finished all the pans and things I would need to cook breakfast when I heard little footsteps coming down the hallway. I turned around just in time to see the tiny, round face of a sibling I had yet to meet.
She wiped the sleep from her eyes when she looked up at me and immediately screamed at the top of her lungs. I nearly jumped out of my skin and covered my ears as I heard a bunch of thuds of people falling or running out of their beds, because she screamed LOUD!
Within a second, Dad had entered the room in nothing but his pajama pants yelling "WHAT IS IT?"
''Daddy there's a stranger in the house!'' the little girl screamed, pointing at me.
''For the love of-STOP SCREAMING!'' he commanded. by this point, about six more faces had appeared in the room. ''FAMILY MEETING IN THE LIVING ROOM NOOOW!'' he called so that everyone would hear him, and everyone ran to claim their spots. ''Sorry about that, Amy. Come with me and I'll make sure everyone else knows you're not a stranger.'' he said in a tired voice, pulling me by arm to the family meeting.
We entered the living room, which had quickly been filled with little kids that I hadn't seen in years, barely recognized now, and some I hadn't met. The couch was overfilled, sagging almost to the floor under the seven little bodies that occupied it. There was another on each arm of the couch, Brian standing behind holding a baby.
''Okay, everyone. Who remembers who this is?'' Dad began, and I saw six little hands jump into the air. Brian just smiled, considering he had no free hand to put up. ''Okay, that's good. For those of you who don't know her, this is your oldest sister Amy. She'll be taking care of us like Lindsey used to. She left a long time ago, so let's try to all be nice to her for coming back.'' he turned to me. ''Amy is there anyone you don't remember or know?''
''Let's see...I know Brian and who's...'' I said, pointing to the snoozing baby in his arms.
''This is Angelina, but we call her Angie. She's only four months old.''
''Okay, now who are...you two?'' I asked, pointing to the second and third smallest faces, one of which being the girl who had woken everybody up with her screams.
''That's Joseph, he's two, and Michelle, three.'' Brian said.
''Okay, now let's see if I've got the rest of you right...you're Jason'' pointing to the boy on one arm of the couch, ''and there's Tony, Samuel, Timmy...'' I was going across from right to left ''Carly and Carson, you guys still look so much alike,'' I said recognizing the only set of twins in the large family, ''then there's Hannah.'' I said, ending on the last arm rest.
''Yep. You got em' all.'' said Brian.
Okay, so I only had to remember Angie, Joseph, and Michelle. That shouldn't be too hard. Plus getting used to knowing their new, now older, faces, which I would just have to get used to speaking to.
''Well now that that's settled, I'm gonna start the coffee. Amy, you do cook, right?'' Dad asked.
''Yes sir.''
''Then try to start some breakfast soon.''
''I'll see what I can do, but we do need to go shopping soon; the food's almost all bad.'' I said boldly.
''Don't you think I'm aware of that?'' he asked.
''Yes sir. Sorry.'' I apologized. Same old Daddy. Great.
I went to the kitchen and found some baking ingredients and an old recipe book. I started on a triple batch of pancakes, not sure how much everyone would eat but not willing to take the chance on just a double. I also found some syrup and questionable jelly, but if it was no good I could just put it back before anyone could use it. Within a few minutes, there were pancakes frying, eggs and bacon sizzling, and some slightly stale bread in the toaster. Carly came in and offered to set the table, which I thankfully allowed, and I started drawing other curious children in with the smells. By the time only half the pancakes were done, toast was finished, and eggs were ready, everyone was at the table enjoying the food as I finished it.
I finished cooking about halfway through the meal and took my own seat in the middle of the chaos. 'Those emeralds would have no power on a mess this big!' I joked to myself. I grabbed what I could while I still had the chance, as it turned out three batches was just two pancakes more than enough. After everyone had left, leaving their sticky plates un-rinsed in the sink. I quickly unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher to start another load of dishes, this time making an almost slightly sort of noticable dent in the stack of dishes. While those were going, I put the clothes I had started earlier into the dryer and started another one going in the washer.
After that, I went to the living room and told Brian of my plan to prepare the kitchen to be restocked and how that would require him getting everyone out of the house. He was on board with the idea and immediately came up with the idea of taking everyone to the park. Once they heard the idea, they jumped into action, getting dressed and ready to go. The plan, though, would require the use of two cars, which meant two drivers, so I left it up to Brian to convince Dad, since he was the only one Dad ever really paid much to any respect towards. Once everyone was ready and Dad was convinced, they piled into the two big cars; we had one other small car for Dad to drive to work, and headed off. That meant I had the house and all of its filth to myself.
First thing was first; I went up to me and Lindsey's old room only to find it had been untouched for at least a week, which surprised me a little, even if Lindsey was dead. I went to the closet and found all of her old clothes exactly the same as they had been last time I saw her, back when she was my current age. It was a dress identical to the one I always wore, only a few sizes larger considering she would have been 18 when she died not so long ago at all. I felt the tears well up in my eyes, but ignored them as I went to the back of the closet where I had left my cedar chest full of stuff the day I left. I opened it to find everything exactly the same with a note on top that read ''Welcome Back'' in the distinctive handwriting of Lindsey. I smiled at the crooked smiley face drawn on it and removed the dusty quilt on top of all the things I had worked so hard to hide from everyone, but I knew Lindsey would have known about them. It was piles of the dark poetry and notes I had written during the worst parts of my depression, every certificate I had ever won at school and never shown my parents, the now empty cup I had kept all of my money in that I saved for the day I could run away from this prison, the empty bottles that had once contained anything from wine to whiskey I had collected from my parents' bedroom floor and whispered all of my secrets into when I was younger, and, of course, the pocket knives I had found or bought or even stolen to feed my old emotional habits. Some of them were just a simple switch-blade, others were as complicated as Swiss-army knives, some were just kitchen knives, and some were beautifully decorated knives sharp enough to cut you with the slightest touch. There were also tins of almost any color hair dye imaginable and some of the old gothic clothes I would sometimes wear. I smiled at all the morbid memories and ran my fingers across the puddles of dried blood the almost covered the bottom of the chest. And that was all I needed was to know that everything was still there and had remained untouched; even the black roses I had collected over the years remained with their wilted petals in the exact places I had left them.
I smiled and closed the chest of broken dreams and tragic memories. I went back downstairs and retrieved a big bucket from outside and carried it to the kitchen. I started taking things out of the fridge, putting the good things in a stack off to the side, pouring rotten or moldy things in the bucket, tossing dirty containers into the sink, and throwing any wrappers or disposable things into a garbage bag. Once the fridge had been cleaned out and sanitized, I put the good things back, barely filling up a whole shelf. Then I moved on and did the same with the cabinets, not finding quite as many spoiled things, but still enough to practically empty the already scarce foods from it.
Once all that was done, I took the garbage bag out and left it by the other filled trash cans. Then I took the bucket of mold to the back of the yard and dug a big hole to dump it all in, since it was biodegradable. I did a few cartwheels around the yard for the mere purpose of cleaning any and all mold or rotten food-remnants off of my hands and feet at the same time. Once that was done, I swept the kitchen and did the dishes I had emptied from the fridge and pantry. Once they were done, I purposefully splashed a bunch of the sudsy water unto the floor and used a mop to spread it around, mopping the floor as I went. I also kept going with the laundry and dish washer the whole day, turning the laundry room from knee-deep to shin-deep in laundry and the cabinets actually had some dishes in them, with only half the dirty dishes that had been there before. The table was no longer coated in syrup and crumb and whatever else had been there before. I started on a shopping list that might get us back on track food-wise, but I'd want to go to the store myself just to make sure that I could find everything. I finished before anyone got home, even though it was already 4:00, so I set to work tightening the table up with a screw-driver and figured as long as I had the tools out, I might as well start in the living room, so I found some boards and fixed the coffee table's broken leg and replaced the old boards under the couch so it wouldn't sag when you sat on it.
I started trying to clean up a little, but ended up just tossing things into the rooms I thought they'd best fit in, piling what looked like schoolwork over by the backpacks lined against one of the walls and other papers on a desk in the corner. I was about halfway done cleaning the room when I heard a car pull up in the driveway and five little kids rushed in, followed by Dad. He looked tired and I figured he had gone through the day on a little bit of a hangover, so I approached him with caution.
''Daddy?'' I asked as he sat down on the couch, ''I cleaned out the fridge and pantry and I made a shopping list of about everything we need to get. Who does the shopping, or is that me?'' I asked.
''Usually Lindsey went, but she took whoever else wanted to go. Can you drive Amy?'' he asked.
''Yes sir, but I don't have a license.''
''Than don't do anything that would make you need one.'' he said, tossing me the car keys and his wallet. ''Don't spend too much and see who wants to go with you.''
''Yes sir. '' I said and went to see who did want to go.
In a few minutes I was in the car with Joseph and Hannah as we headed for the store.
''So why did you leave, Amy?'' Hannah asked.
''I just...I guess I just didn't want to deal with everything anymore.''
''I still don't get it. Anyway, how old are you? You're much taller than I remember you. How long ago was that?''
''Well, I was about 11 or 12 when I left, and I'm 15 now, so that was about four and a half years ago.''
''Wow. What have you been doing all this time?'' she asked, just like old times.
''The first two years I just kind of moved around a lot and then I made some friends and had a lot of adventures with them.
''Have you ever been on TV? I think I saw you on TV once!''
''Probably.''
''How? Did you do something bad? Or really good? I've always wanted to be on TV!'' Hannah was a very pretty girl of 10 years old; she had blonde hair and big, blue eyes with a nice height and figure for her age, but she wouldn't stop talking to save her life!
''It was probably just news cast with Sonic.''
''Wait, you knew SONIC? Like the super fast Sonic the Hedgehog?'' she exclaimed.
''Sonic! Sonic!'' Joseph yelled in his car seat.
''Yeah. He was my best friend.'' I said somewhat sadly, wishing it hadn't come up.
''Are you kidding or what?''
''Yes.'' I said, hoping she'd forget about it.
''Oh thank goodness! If you had met him without me, I might just die!'' she said dramatically. ''I'll get to meet him someday and then he'll fall in love with me and we'll get married and live happily ever after.'' I had to stifle a laugh at that. She had no idea.
We got all the groceries we needed and got home in time for me to make a good dinner. And that was my first day back ''home''.