The next morning, I awoke to the sound of breakfast being made and laughter echoing throughout the house. Opening my eyes, I noticed that I wasn't in the room I'd fallen asleep in. Confused, grouchy, and still half asleep I stumbled out of bed and opening the door, I knew where I was almost instantly.
I was at Sam and Emily's. A familiar face poked his head around the door and smiled. "Hey sleepy head, what's up?" Seth said. Still grouchy- I'm not a morning person as you can tell- I kicked him in the face. He went tumbling backwards and rubbed his forehead.
"What was that for?" he said in a whiny tone.
"For making me talk this early in the morning." I said.
"Its noon Serena," someone said from behind me. I turned around to come face to face with Emily. She chuckled and led me to the kitchen. The boys and Leah said hello and good morning to me. It was nice, this place felt like a family gathering, and for once since I got here, I felt as if I had a family where I belonged.
Sitting down at the table next to Seth, much to my displeasure, Emily handed me a plate of pancakes and a glass of orange juice. "So...Emily, how did I fall asleep at Charlie's and end up here?" I asked her.
"Jake brought you over, and then he left. I think he should be here soon, he just had to go back to his place and clean up the house or something," she said shaking her head. "Maybe he's finally cleaning up that bathroom…he better be or I'm gonna kill him. A young lady needs a clean bathroom…" she said muttering as she sputtered around the kitchen some more.
"Wait, wait, wait. I have my own bathroom? Are you serious? Sweet!" I said squealing in excitement.
They all laughed. We ate and talked about nothing and everything. Mostly people wanted to know about my mom, what she'd been doing all these years and stuff like that. Emily wanted to know what I was thinking about for my birthday, which was in a few weeks. I told her that I hadn't thought about it much at all.
She laughed at that and said that she'd just through me a small little barbeque or something, I told her that it didn't matter, but she said, "A girl turning fourteen is a big deal, and since I haven't got any kids of my own, and I never got to through you a party, Jake and I will do this whether either of you like it or not, understood?" she finished her rant and patted me on the head, whispering in my ear, "just let me do this one thing or you'll regret it," and with that she walked off and left me wide eyed and scared shit-less.
The people at the table laughed, "What's so funny? That shit was freaky!" I screamed without thinking about what I'd just said. Suddenly everything got very quiet, but a low chuckle could be heard from the doorway, "Now that's my girl!" said Jacob (I guess I should start calling him dad now huh?) as he came over and patted me on the back.
"Wait, I'm not gonna get in trouble for cussing?" I asked him, appalled.
"Hey we all do it now and then, or some of us do it in every sentence. So nobody truly cares, especially me. I couldn't care either way," he said laughing. But Emily came up and hit him with a rolling pin.
"Jacob Ephraim Black! You are now in the care of this young girl, soon to be young woman! You should not be encouraging her into foul language!" We all cracked up at the defeated sight of him hunching down almost like a small kid who knew he'd just got caught sticking his hand in the cookie jar before dinner.
"Wow dad, you just got dissed." I laughed at him.
"Oh shut up kid," he said shaking my hair.
"Okay you two, Serena, why don't you go get dressed so we can head out to start our long day of shopping, and Jake, don't worry. She's in good hands, you know that. So if I hear one peep from one of your brothers about you complaining, I will personally make sure that she is the last child you will ever have."
I laughed, and walked back upstairs to get changed. "Hey Emily, can I use your shower?" I asked, from the bottom of the stairs.
"Yeah sure, there's shampoo and soup in there too, here I'll show you how to work it, it's kinda hard to work." She said coming up behind me.
"Okay," I said.
After the shower Emily let me borrow a clean shirt of hers 'cause mine was, well let's just say that months without a washing machine and only two pairs of pants, three shirts, and two sweaters, you are bound to have some smelly laundry.
Dad (boy that's weird to say) hugged me good-bye, then Emily, Leah, and two other girls whose names I learned are Angela and Rachel all headed out to Seattle for a good long day of shopping. The girls asked all about me, what music I liked, what my favorite color was, if I read and if so what books, did I watch T.V. or did I sit in my room and day dream?
I told them that my favorite colors are black red and purple. I like all types of music, country, rock, metal, scream-o, pop, classical, everything. So they asked about bands, singers that type of stuff. I told them that I really like PINK, Paramore, Evanescence, Avril Lavigne, Black Eyed Peas, Black Veil Brides, Taylor Swift, Kenny Chesney, Martina McBride, Linkin Park, Eminem, Nickleback, and a lot of others but those are my all time favorites.
I read some, but mostly I just write or listen to music. I told them that a few years back I danced, but because we couldn't afford it anymore I had to quit. After that I told them that I went into singing and writing and took up the guitar. I'd play sometimes on Saturday downtown on the corners of sidewalks and people would give me tips or people would place requests. It was fun and I got paid cash which was just icing on the cake.
I don't watch much T.V. but I like the crime shows like CSI, Bones that kind of stuff. They were awestruck when I told them that. They couldn't believe they had just heard a child, well I'm a teenager but to them I guess I'm still a kid but still they couldn't believe that I didn't watch much television. To be honest, I never really liked it. I always preferred to sit in my room with a notebook and the radio on or to be in the dance studio. Never really the social person you'd expect which got me into trouble in school because when people did come up to me, I'd scare them away. Not that I minded, but still, the school didn't like it.
They laughed and as we arrived at our destination, I looked at the shopping area in awe. It was small but it was perfect. With stores like Hottopic and Macy's, this would be a great day. As soon as we found a parking spot, I jumped out and was bouncing around like a kid hyped up on a sugar rush. "Hey, hey can we go to Hottopic? Please! It's amazing! Please!" I practically begged them. They looked at me and laughed, "Sure why not?" and with that we walked over towards the store. Well they walked I ran. When I walked in I was welcomed by the familiar loud music blasting with a heavy beat and people with crazy outfits and multi-colored hair passing in and out. I let out a sigh, "I'm home," I said mostly to myself.
Relishing in the weirdness of the store, this place was unlike any other. The mix of Otaku, with Goth, Punk and Emo, it truly was a place where I belonged. Going straight over toward to wall lined with all the different t-shirts they had, I began to dig through the piles looking for the one that I wanted. Standing back up with a good three or four T's in my arms, I kept on looking. When the girls finally got there and they saw all the stuff I had, their jaws dropped to the ground.
"Okay I know it's a lot of stuff, and I can put some back, but please let me keep some, just like maybe three? Please?" I said seeing their wavering looks. Leah was the first one to recover from her shock. "Dude, how come I never came here? This place is awesome! If these party poopers won't pay for those I sure as hell will as long as I can get some stuff to kid." And with that we nearly cleaned out the entire store buying earrings, jeans, dresses, jackets, practically an entire wardrobe in one store. Emily, Rachel and Angela were awestruck. They couldn't believe it.
"Okay well now let's focus on stuff for your room besides posters and such." Angela said giggling as she motioned to the posters sticking out of one of the bags and the huge bag holding a Paramore bean-bag chair.
We hit every store in that place. And by the end of the day, we were so tired, I actually fell asleep in the car. And we still weren't done. But the only thing left was to decide on a color for the room and desk. But that would be decided later. Now we're making the drive back home, and then, I get to see my brand new home.