March 28th 2023
Chapter 87
We Celebrate Sunny & Mouse-Mouse
Dear Mrs. Hart Hunter Friar,
Dear Sister Ours,
If anyone asks, we are writing to you completely sober. But just between us, there may have been a few, how do you say, 'adult beverages' at our party tonight. You won't tell Mom and Dad, will you? Gracie's kind of paranoid when she's drunk, who saw that coming? Yeah, well, Nellie's not being very discreet when she is either. What makes you say that? I haven't told anyone. You're saying everything you're writing out loud. Oh, right, sorry about that. I'll stop now. See? You're just whispering it now. But silence is too quiet, okay? Can I sing then? Sure, as long as you're not singing what you're writing. I would never. I'm not the one who did musicals for four years, was I? Anyway, no one else is here. New paragraph now? Sure.
If you'd like to get the full picture, the two of us are sitting across from each other on the floor, pushing this notepad back and forth. It keeps falling on the floor. Nellie almost banged her head on the coffee table twice already diving to catch it. That's because you keep shooting it way off to the side. You're a much better shot than this usually, what happened? Beverages. Right, right. It's a funny word, isn't it? Beverages… (If you didn't guess it already, she's sitting there, saying that word to herself over and over. She finds it so funny she didn't notice I took the pad from her.) Did, too! Are we actually going to send this to her? What did we even want to write for? We had a reason, didn't we? I'm sure we did. Why else would we sit down here? I think you said 'I'm going to be sick, I don't want to be sick, it's gross.' And then I said 'let's sit down, everything's spinning anyway.' And then this was here, from us coming up with a plan for moving day before. Oh, right, right. Well, it worked, I think. Haven't tried to get up yet, so who knows? Okay, but we're writing now, so shouldn't we j—Alright, alright, let me think about this for a second.
Hey, we're nineteen! Nineteen! One year away from not teens… teen! Yeah! And we're moving in tomorrow! We're going to be hungover tomorrow, aren't we? I've never been hungover before. Me neither. Mom and Dad won't like it, will they? Especially Dad… Oh, this is bad, isn't it? Do you think we can just go right over there now? Then they don't have to see us! Of course, they're going to see us, Nell. You don't know that. I can be very quiet when I try. You're narrating again. Sorry! I just always like it in movies, you know, when the characters sit and write some big, important letter, and you can hear what they're writing! This is so not that kind of letter, and they weren't giggling the whole time. They definitely weren't drunk. Well, that's good, because neither are we. Why are you holding my foot? Oh, sorry, I thought that was mine, I was cold. Well, so was I, I guess. How are your hands that warm but your feet aren't? Beats me. Okay, how about we both write our thing. Then we can pack this up and go mail it, yeah? I don't know, that doesn't feel like the best idea. It is though, trust me. I wouldn't mislead you. It's concerning that you believe that.
Fine, I'll start then. I want to say that I can't wait to be living with you, Maya. I know it wasn't any of our faults that we didn't get to grow up in the same house together for very long, but I'm really, really glad that we get to at least try and make up for lost time now. And I promise this thing tonight isn't going to become a thing, okay? I love you so much, big sister. You're the best one a girl could ask for. I'm so excited about tomorrow morning, so I guess I wanted you to know that in case I'm a bit too hungover to show it when I see you. I'm really not looking forward to what this is going to look like in the morning…
Hey, so, right now Gracie's covering up what she wrote to you so I can't see it, so I'm making sure she can't see my part either, yeah? Don't tell her later. Maybe she won't remember. Maybe I won't remember. This is going to be so weird when you get our letter. Maybe it'll get lost in the mail, or we'll think we mailed it, but we'll have stuck it in a trash can instead. They kind of look like mailboxes sometimes, don't they? Okay, Gracie is staring at me, so I think she knows I'm rambling. Or maybe I'm narrating again… No… No, I'm not talking, am I? Ha, I'm singing. Not bad, right? No, wait, you can't hear me, and she can't read this. Well, I'm amazing, thanks.
Not as amazing as you, obviously. And you're not my teacher anymore, so I'm not kissing up for good grades. Not that I did that, ever. It's so hard to stay on topic, and you know what's funny? It's not even because I'm drunk, nope. It's because I'm too excited about tomorrow. That's why I'm all over the place. You know how I am when I have to wait sometimes, don't you? Now I'm supposed to wait for this? I want to be there already! I want to get to be with you! I probably can't crawl into bed with you the way I did when I was little, can I? Unless I get Lucas to go away… He would do that for us, he's a great guy like that.
Nellie fell asleep, but I'm going to wake her up now and we're going to go mail you your letter. It's probably not the brightest thing we ever did, but hey, now you'll have something to hold over us in the future. That'll be fun.
Until morning,
Mouse-Mouse & Sunny
X
"Hey, they're on their way," Maya poked her head into her brother's room after establishing that the baby was not asleep. Just now, the boy was sitting at peace in his father's arms as Wyatt sat up on his bed, laptop balanced on his knees. "My mother says they had a 'big night' last night. By the time she and Dad came home with MJ and Haley, your new neighbors from across the hall were asleep on the couch… Actually, she mentioned how the two of them had breaths coming off them like they'd had a few and tried to cover it up. And now this morning, Dad is just living to mess with the two of them. So, that should be fun, right?" she couldn't help but chuckle.
Wyatt barely acknowledged all of this, remained mostly concentrated on his screen. He was actually really looking forward to the twins coming to stay with them. He loved the idea of getting to live with some of his big sister's siblings 'from the other side of her tree,' which would be brand new for all of them involved. But he didn't look like that now. He didn't look like he didn't want them to be here anymore, no, more like he was not thinking about the move in any way.
"Wyatt?" Maya stepped forward. She came and sat down on the edge of the bed, tipped her head so her nephew could see her face. He was still so small, but not so much that he wouldn't be delighted to see familiar faces swimming overhead. He reached his little baby hands up, and never one to deny him, Wyatt passed his son over into his sister's arms. "Hey, Finny," Maya hummed, kissing his little cheeks. After a moment of this, she looked back to her brother. "What's up?" she asked him.
"I've been thinking about something," he finally spoke, barely looking up from his screen or, maybe, not daring to meet her eye.
"Yeah?" she asked, prodding gently.
"I've been thinking about him, about what my next move needs to be," he told her. She kept looking back at him, waiting for him to carry on. "I… I need to think about what I have to do, to provide for him the way he needs to be provided for. And to do that, I… I think I need to think about… not… going to school… anymore," he slowly told her, then, "Not forever, I'm not giving up or anything, I'm not. But I just… I need to do this for him, need to work more, to earn more and save up, you know?"
"Wyatt…"
"I'm all he has," he wouldn't let it go, couldn't let it go. He didn't often talk about Alicia, her going away, what it had meant for their baby boy as much as for himself. They hadn't heard a word from her, and though he remained confident that he knew where she'd gone, he hadn't tried to get in touch with her. In the meantime, he was a single father to a very small boy… and a college student… He may not have had to think about a lot of things, thanks to his living under his sister's roof, but he also didn't have it in him to settle, to be complacent, and Maya respected that.
"I understand. I really do. Can we agree to maybe just… think on it a bit? Before making any decisions?"
"Okay," Wyatt breathed out. "But I have to decide soon. The new semester is coming up, I need to know before it's too late."
"That's fair," Maya nodded. "I'll back you up, whatever you choose."
"Thanks," Wyatt quietly replied. He looked at her, holding Finneas, and he smiled. It made her smile back. "The twins got drunk?"
"If anyone under the age of ten asks, they were so excited about moving in last night that they didn't sleep for a minute, and that's why they look like zombies today," Maya suggested, which made him laugh. "You're with us, huh, bud?" she looked down to Finn, who only had eyes for his father now, so he was soon returned to him.
There was no need to wonder when the Hunters would arrive on their escort of the soon-to-be college freshmen to their new home. The girls were playing out front – a prime spot for watching the road – along with their Aunt Maisie, and as soon as they saw the familiar car coming, they sounded the alarm with great, happy calls to their parents.
Oh, did the hangover ever sit uncomfortably on the newly nineteen-year-old twins. They both had the look to suggest that the slightest noise felt like it came via a bullhorn, and the sun had been cranked up to the max. At least, when they spotted their sister, brother-in-law, nieces, and 'double step' sister and brother, they looked glad to have made it, though that might have had something to do with the possibility of either of them being sick at any point; it was a good idea to be near a bathroom for that, wasn't it?
"Hey, guys, you made it," Maya opened her arms to them, and they folded in, feeling this close to tiny, clingy girls as they'd once been. Before long, this hug was joined by several extra arms, small ones, and they greeted this gladly.
"Did the mailman pass yet?" Nellie asked softly.
"I don't think so, why?" Maya asked.
"I don't know, I just…" Nellie looked over to Gracie as they pulled back. Both twins had roughly the same look on their faces, one that went something like 'are you sort of remembering what I'm sort of remembering.' "It's fine, never mind… I think…"
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
