Note: heyyy it's been forever! i know, i've been really caught up with college and moving to a new country and everything. :) r&r!
Skip A Beat
Nothing can ever beat the smell and touch of my my freshly pressed clothes at home, for my mom does it different than any other person in the world. She has her secret technique which she refused to tell me, and which I figured out while spying behind the chair when I was 10. Of course, I carried on pretending not to know about her secret weapon. When I walked into my room, the smell of lavender was coming out from my own closet and it put a smile on my face. Coming back home from Yale exuded a sense of joy, secretly, inside of me.
"Guess whooo?", a hand covered my eyes from behind and it widen my smile. When I reached my hand up to touch it, the fingers were long and lanky, the hand was soft. Casually, I uttered, like how I have always uttered this name since the day I could pronounce it. "Cass".
She lifted her hand as I turned back at an instant and found my own sister shrieking. "OHMYGOD". Cass threw herself forward and gave me the tightest hug that got me all warm and almost into suffocation. I laughed, struggling to loosen her grip, "Cass, you're choking me!".
She let go in a hurry, apologising, "Oh, oh I'm so sorry!". And I got a better look at her. Cass was still Cass; her hair was the same, she was still taller than me, she did not gain any weight which I know will literally send her off the roof. She rambled on, "I missed you Cait, so much! And I have so much to tell you!"
When I was about to tell her how much I missed her too, a voice came from the door, "Knock knock?". A guy, who was very much taller than Cass, with raised brows and a kind smile stood at the door. I could tell it was Adam, the kind of guy that Cass would have fallen for with the broadcasting charm splattered across his face.
Cass' face lit up with a smile as she pulled me forward, closer, "Caitlin, I want you to officially meet Adam". And then she turned to Adam, "Adam, I want you to meet my lovable sister, Caitlin".
Adam raised his hand, a greeting gesture, "I've heard so much about you"
"Likewise". I could see how Adam makes Cass happy, in a way that is so magical that no words could depict. Cass' face lit up with Adam's presence in the room, and Adam's natural response to Cass' presence was to be near her.
Adam said, "So Caitlin, Yale huh? That's pretty ballsy"
"Well that's because my sister is a tough chick", Cass threw an arm across my shoulder and grip it tight. "And I want you to tell me all about it okay". I smiled, faintly. At that moment, my mind started picking out things that I should tell, and things that I shouldn't, for instance, Rogerson.
Just then, Mom called out from the dining room downstairs. "Kids, it's dinner time". Her voice rung through the house like a huge Christmas chime and easily, if anyone was here, they would have sensed mom's excitement for Christmas in a long while.
Cass rolled her eyes. "My gosh, mom's still referring to us as kids, can you believe that?". Adam let out a chuckle, and I could see how much he admires Cass as much as she does him.
"Come on, wouldn't wanna keep your mom waiting", he dragged Cass' arm, and Cass hung on to mine on the other side.
"You guys go ahead, I'll come down in five minutes"', I let go of Cass' arm and said. Cass shrugged, and hopped down the stairs with Adam.
I threw myself on the bed, with my face looking up at the ceiling, and my body pressed against my soft fluffy mattress.
And it felt good to be home.
But instead of being pampered with the feel-good feeling for the rest of the holidays like how I wanted, I was being thrown into the pithole, like the one I dreamed of.
I pulled myself up, unconsciously, and found my hands running into the side pocket of the bags I brought home from college. They paused still for a moment when the tips of my fingers reached a velvet box. I loved velvet and how good it feels whenever my fingers brush across the texture; he knew that.
Carefully, I pulled the box out and sat on the floor.
The box was wrapped in the darkest purple coloured velvet I've ever seen, beautifully wrapped infact. As my fingers danced around it, my heart contemplated with a heavy hesitation if I should open it, or heck, if I should have taken it in the first place. Taking the gift revealed my pokerface to Rogerson, who could read me like an open book. It basically screamed into his face that Rogerson Biscoe is somehow etched in Caitlin O'Koren's heart.
Then they moved to flip the velvet box open.
It was the most beautiful locket I've ever seen, with its silver body and the deeply shaped pattern on it. I flipped the locket over and found my name carved on it. My forefinger ran thorugh the alphabets, "C-A-I-T-L-I-N", one by one.
My heart skipped a beat.
