Hello everyone. Remember when I had several stories to finish at once? Well, I've realized I now have several stories to finish again. I don't know exactly how many chapters are left on either of them but it's these.
-What goes around comes around
-Shake it out
-You are the best thing (that's ever been mine)
-When I returned
-The search for a family
So for those five you can expect to be finished soon. And those are five of ten so it will be half of my stories going on.
Until then, I hope you like this chapter.
I saw a squirrel today
it was skipping across the road
making it safely
to the other side
I saw a girl today
she was dancing along the sidewalk
one jump, one turn, two steps
then starting over again
I saw a boy today
three, maybe four years old
he was walking down the road
holding on to his father's hand
I saw a tree today
its leaves are growing
small and green
for the spring
I saw a flower today
it was coming up
By the street
purple and beautiful
Isn't it strange
how the world just keep moving on
like it always did
even when you can't do it yourself
I saw the sun today
and it was still shining
When I had arrived at the Hudmel's I just knew that I had to have a pen and paper and when I did it was just like the night after Jonah's funeral and it seemed like my hand with the pen was just floating over the paper sheet.
And then, after I wrote the very last word I knew more than I had ever known with any poem before it was finished…
I read through it one more time, then folded the paper sheet and put it in my bag before I faced Lex again who seemed quite impatient to go to the store and start the ice cream party.
"Can I read it?"
"No." Lex was standing right next to me so I quickly folded the paper I had written it on and put it in my backpack. "And don't you dare try to sneak."
"I won't, I won't."
Lex laughed. She wasn't one to break promises but I also knew she was a terribly sneaky person and always wanted to know more.
Maybe it was time to…
"Are we going?"
Carole's question as she took her car keys and held them up. Ariel got up wagging her tail happily and ran up to me.
"Sorry Ariel. You're not coming with us."
"Don't worry about it." When Ariel ran over to Lex to see if she would be any nicer. "To work all the calories from all we've eaten we're going to have to take you on a very long walk later." Lex blinked at me and then went after her mum into the hallway and then continued outside. "Are you coming Leah."
"Yep… Don't look at me like that Ari. You have to know you can't come with us to the supermarket to buy ice cream."
As if she understood the words I said Ariel sighed and then walked to lie down under the living room table to wait for us to come back.
"She's just too cute." Lex laughed slightly as we came outside. "I will never even understand how we can leave her when she looked so sad. Or what do you say Leah?"
I shook my head slightly- it felt as if I hadn't laughed at all during the past few weeks. Being a person laughing easily I should have noticed it sooner but I just hadn't…
And I still just couldn't. Even though right now and a little while ago, after I had went from that graveyard it had felt like a weight of the world being lift from my shoulders.
"So what are we getting?"
It was Carole's question once we had come inside the doors of the store, I and Lex looked at each other questioning, then to Carole and then around the store as if we would be able to see every little thing they sold.
"Perhaps banana." Lex suggested at last. "Or grapes… or melon. Fruits are healthy right… What are you thinking Leah?"
"It sounds good. But we come to that section later…" We'd come into the section of bread's and biscuit's first. "Maybe we should get some of… this and make some sort of ice cream sandwiches…"
"Leah Sophia Marilla Carmichael…" I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "I like the way you're thinking."
"Well Alexandria Cara Snow Hudmel. If I hear you use my full name one more time, I will force you down into the ice cream freezer, close the lid and then not let you out of there again until you've eaten all of that ice cream up…."
"But I'm going to be full… and I won't be able to move…"
"Now that will be your problem if I hear my full name one more time…"
"I have to come up with something worse than that…" Lex hesitated. "…mum. Help me with coming up with something…"
"Oh no. I am not getting into the childish bickering of yours. And if you keep that up then I'm taking you right out of this store and you certainly will not be having any ice cream tonight."
"But mu-um!"
For a second something twisted in my stomach while I thought the two of them were being serious. Then I turned and saw Carole smirking and Lex sticking her tongue out to me. I just had to get back at her and grimaced and stuck my tongue out towards her too.
"What did I just tell you?"
"Come on Leah. Let's just pick a bread… what do you think? It's got to be some kind of white bread at least… why does there have to be so many kinds of bread for?"
"How about that one?"
At least the rest of the shopping went through without any more of what Carole had just called childish bickering…
Pft. Us two? Childish? Never…
If we weren't childish we would for certain not be getting anything else but vanilla or chocolate ice cream but instead we scanned through the shelves for what could be best.
"How many different kinds of ice cream can there be?"
I leaned down and took a box of chocolate ice cream, then looked at how much it cost and put it back again.
"No Leah." I heard Carole behind me. "I forbid you to look at the prices. If there is one point you two deserve this it's today and now so you just grab whatever you want." Without hesitating she leaned down, took the box I'd just been holding onto and laid it in the basket.
"You know she's not going to change her mind." I heard Lex behind me. "I know people think I'm spoiled but I have tried everything and she won't let herself get stopped."
"If you are spoiled then we'll keep spoiling you until we've made up for the first sixteen years of your life when you were as far from spoiled as can possibly be."
"See?"
I just shook my head at them, what else was I supposed to do. Of course what they had just told me was very much correct…
"Is that all then girls?"
By the freezers and the checkout stands we had filled up baskets with everything we could have come up with would suit any type of ice cream along with all the gallons of ice cream we could find.
"I guess…" Lex looked over the baskets. "Or what do you say Leah?"
Well, something like what I said in the moment we came into the kitchen at the Hudmel's house.
"We could eat ice cream for every meal as long as I'm here. And we'd still have just as much left."
Lex only looked at me.
"Great minds think alike." She smiled. "Of course we won't eat anything but ice cream… and bread and grapes, pieces of melon, apples and pears, chocolate chip cookies, vanilla flavored cookies…" On it went. "…and sprinklers."
Burt had come into the kitchen while Lex had gone on, now he just raised an eyebrow with a chuckle.
"Can you share that with me?"
"I'm not so sure Kurt would like you eating this dad." Lex told him and then turned to me. "Dad has always liked junk food more than what Kurt liked- he had a heart attack some years ago and every time Kurt is here is making him promise about a hundred times to go on with healthier eating."
"Don't tell her that." Burt gestured towards me. "I have perfectly enough with Kurt worrying about my heart so don't you start too…"
For a second I thought he was serious and I guess he was. Still in his eyes there was a mischievous sparkle when he helped us picking up everything we had bought to actually have the chance to have one ice cream… filled weekend.
I would say ice cream party. But clearly that wasn't going to be enough…
Exactly how long was I supposed to stay here actually? Until tomorrow or until Sunday?
"I remember we said last time it was your time to choose the movies this time." I hadn't remembered it until Lex mentioned that. "Did you bring anything?"
"I'm sorry. I'd completely forgotten about that. Oh my. It's just been way too long…" I stopped in the sentence not to go there again. "They're still at home and I know exactly where I put it but… no!"
Lex looked slightly disappointed, and for some reason I felt my stomach cramping slightly when I knew I'd told I'd watch it with Jonah. But then things hadn't turned out the way they were supposed to and Jonah had forever been happy with reading the book,,,
"I could go home and get it now."
"No. It's fine… Both of the boys relied on Netflix when they moved so we have a whole load of movies that we can watch. Have you watched the blind side?"
We kept on talking about what movie to watch as we put the ice cream into the future and the rest where it was supposed to go and then walked into the living room where the TV was turned off for the moment, Carole was there in the corner of one of the sofas with a magazine.
Lex put her ice cream bowl on the table and then kneeled by a cupboard behind the table. When she opened it I could see that the movies were lying on the shelves in such a mess we couldn't have found anything to watch if we tried…
"Hold on a second." Lex dragged everything out on the floor to put it back in the shelves nicer. "…I think I can guess who was here last… anyway. You seem to have a good taste in movies Leigh. So, except for the fault in our stars… hmmm… Do you have any other favorites?"
I tried to see the movie shelf in my room in front of me for choosing my favorites.
"There's miracles from heaven- my biggest favorite. And then…I have a movie called instant family… but maybe… I'm not sure you would like it."
"What?"
"I guess… It's about adoption. And three siblings who are fostered by a couple."
"Why wouldn't I like that?" I couldn't come up with a good enough answer. "That I'm adopted should 2only mean that I would want to watch those movies more wouldn't it?"
I just shrugged. How could I ever know?
"I guess… I'll bring it…"
"So.-… can you guess who this movie belongs to? Sound of music?"
"Kurt's."
"Well… that one was easy… A whole bunch of home- alone- movies…"
"Finn."
"If only."
"Huh?"
"The movie's called if only, it's with Jennifer Love Hewitt…"
"Kurt."
"Can't there be anything in here that isn't obvious whose it is… Day after tomorrow?" Lex just looked at me and I could answer myself. "Finn… But what about this… the game plan…" I took it and turned it so I could read. "Well… it's about a football player…"
"Finn."
"But it's with a little girl and it's his daughter who suddenly turns up without him knowing she even existed…"
"That's Finn's." Carole told us. "But I didn't tell you that. Okay? Because Finn wanted the movies with football of course. But still he thinks it's a girl's movie which is why he hides it in the back of the cupboard…"
"Sounds like something he would do… Have Kurt watched it too?"
"Yes. He watched it and he really liked it. Although not as much as the sound of music, Annie or Titanic… Although Finn likes those too. But you didn't hear that from me."
"Hear what?"
I had to laugh at Lex even though she wasn't even being funny. But it just felt so lit up now, after not having talked for weeks we were just having this girls' night and it was like nothing had happened. It was all about Titanic and then if only and Jennifer Love Hewitt, along with God knows how many bowls of ice cream until, hours after Burt and Carole had gone to bed too we had moved upstairs and into Lex's bedroom and started changing into our pyjamas…
"Have you noticed something?" Lex suddenly asked, she was running her fingers through her long mane but I couldn't see what she meant. "With my hair?"
"What?"
"It was red- dark red. And it's been turning more and more brown…"
Lex leaned her head to the side and ran her fingers through her long hair. And she did not exactly look happy.
"What's wrong with brown hair`" I threw my own brown hair over one shoulder. "It's obviously the best."
"I never said there was anything wrong with it. I just sort of liked the red. And come on. If there's one think I don't think we've ever talked about it's the way we've looked… Now. Except for my hair changing color I can't really think of anything to add to that… Do you have anything to add to that?"
I shook my head and then yawned.
"Stop that. It's contagious."
Lex yawned too and we couldn't help but laugh for the millionth time in only the latest few hours.
"Do you think we're meant to be going to bed now?"
I looked to my watch that had since long passed midnight, and suddenly noticed how heavy my head felt with tiredness…
"Yeah. I think we might be… Is the mattress and everything where it's been before?"
"If you don't want to sleep on the floor next to me then you could for certain use Kurt's or Finn's room. Just like you did the last time you were here… you know when."
"I know when…" I thought back to the first few nights after Jonah's funeral and how I had laid in one of the other rooms of this house before I went to the blue mattress that laid in Lex's wardrobe and got it out to start inflating. "Nuh-uh. It is true that the last time I was here I wanted to be on my own but sleepovers aren't right if you're not in the same room with at least one sleeping on the floor. And besides these blow-up-mattresses- kinds are very comfortable…. But we might want to keep it in whatever room just like this so we won't have to keep inflating it every time I arrive. Your turn."
I stood up and Lex kneeled to inflate the mattress. I looked to my side and the paper sheet that laid in my bag almost fully hidden for no one to read it…
Just staring at it for a moment I tried to remember what I had even written, it had just gone so fast I couldn't remember one word…
But as I pulled it up and read it once again. And one more time. And Once more…
"There we go…" I barely even noticed when Lex was done while I read through my newest written poem and signed "LeahC in the corner. "…Do you like what you've written?"
"Yeah I guess."
"Much enough to let anyone else read it?"
I hesitated, All of these years after my poems had gotten spread out over the whole school and I'd never showed my poems to anyone else than Jonah…
Then Jonah wasn't here anymore.
No matter how much I would like to think I would always show only him what I'd written and now no one would be able to read what I'd written.
I thought back to the night that had turned out to be Jonah's last. It had been so taken up by the morning he had passed away. But now, for the first time since then I remembered the five things he had wanted to do before he died. And about the last point that he'd made me promise to show my writing to someone else- to the world when I so dared…
It was probably time to show someone what I could do. Whether they liked it or hated it I loved writing and would be doing so no matter what….
"Actually…" I hesitated another long while only holding onto the paper. "….Do you want to read this… I mean… obviously Jonah isn't around to read my poems anymore and I can't just keep them to myself for the rest of my life."
"Awesome!"
Lex looked way too happy even for just getting to read one single poem. Then as she read it her expression didn't tell me anything about what she thought about it or felt. And I couldn't help the nervous feeling in my gut.
I knew I quite liked what I had written today. But maybe that didn't mean that someone else would like it too…
This was the reason I had never shown anyone else but Jonah what I wrote…
How long could it take to read a poem of six and a half verses?
"Oh Leah…"
The poem is called "I saw a squirrel today" and as usual, with poems used in this and other stories it is written by myself. I hope you liked it.
I was not sure if I should put all of those titles of movies there. I thought it could be quite boring. But I thought they would all be tips for my favorite movies and I think you all should watch them. Also I thought it was quite funny how Finn wouldn't want to admit he watches "girly" movies.
If you like the movie "The game plan" you should go read my other story "What goes around comes around" that's inspired by that movie.
Random fact
As you probably know the poem is about what Leah sees and nothing else. But still what she writes in the poem suits some things one goes through. When I first wrote it (years ago) I kind of forgot about it. Then I remembered it again- mostly the last few lines. And a bit after I'd remembered it was the day I was diagnosed with Epilepsy.
The sun was shining and I went on the bus. When I sat down I took my phone and shot a photo of the sun nearly shining rudely as when I was feeling so sad. And then I thought about this and posted the picture on Instagram with the words
"Ain't it funny
how the world will keep on moving on
even when we cannot do so ourselves
I saw the sun today
and it was still shining"
My friends commented and they really liked it.
At the day I put it up on my private Instagram. I'll take a screenshot and post on my Instagram "Linneagbfanfiction"
