Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Cassius
Two months of working for Harmon Stone and I have one of the nicest apartments I’ve ever seen, and it’s only a few blocks away from the high school.
It’s not the best neighborhood, but it’s not bad either.
It’s safe enough and close enough for Chrissy to walk, if she wanted to. Better than where we were, too.
“I can’t believe this,” I say, looking around the living room. My voice echoes, because it’s completely empty, but we’ll get there.
There’s plenty of money in our account, and we’re going shopping this weekend for furniture that will hopefully be delivered same-day or next-day.
I’ll pay them extra if I have to. The sooner we can get out of our mother’s place, the better.
And I don’t want my sisters sleeping on the floor, so it’s best we wait until the furniture is here.
“Believe it,” Abe says as he looks out at the quiet neighborhood from the living room window. “This is real as fuck.” He turns to look at me, raising a brow. “Are you going to become one of these bougie bitches now?”
I scoff. “No fucking way.”
“And we can have sleepovers?” He waggles his brows.
“You know you’re welcome here whenever you want, but you’re cleaning up after yourself.”
“Yes, sir.”
I turn in a slow circle, looking around again, in disbelief that all this space is ours.
The apartment is the size of three of our trailers.
Three! I don’t know what we’re going to do with all this space, but I’m sure Cammy and Chrissy will have no problem filling every inch of it with stuff they swear we need but probably don’t.
“Have they seen it yet?” Abe asks.
“Cammy has. Chrissy hasn’t.”
My gaze goes to the bedrooms, each door off the inner-living room that I don’t know what I’m going to do with yet.
The layout is different from what I saw in a lot of other apartments.
It could be used as a second living room, but I don’t think we’ll need that.
Maybe we can set up a desk here for Chrissy to do her homework?
Aside from the three bedrooms being off this room, the door to the dining room is too. Off of that is the bathroom and the kitchen.
“When are you moving in officially?”
“As soon as our stuff is delivered.”
My phone buzzes with a rhythm that tells me it’s my alarm. I pull it from my pocket to turn it off.
“Come on. I have to pick up Chrissy.”
Abe and I leave to pick up my sister, and we go back to Oak Hills. Abe walks home from our place, and Chrissy and I go inside.
“Cammy is working until six today,” I say.
“Yeah, she told me this morning.”
“How are you doing?” I ask as she drops her bag onto the floor and scoots into her bed.
“Fine. Why?”
“Just wondering. So, uh, we’re going shopping tomorrow.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “For what?”
“For… all the new furniture for our new apartment.”
She gasps, and I hold my hands up. “Don’t get too excited.”
She growls and reaches over to whack me. “Stop telling me to not get excited. I’m fine.”
“Chrissy—”
“No, Cass. Seriously, you need to stop. I’m fine. Stop making me feel weird about being epileptic.”
“I’m not—I didn’t—”
“What? Didn’t mean it? Yeah, no one ever does.”
She turns on her side, giving me her back.
“Chrissy—” I sigh and kneel beside her bed.
“I’m sorry, okay? I won’t do it any more, I promise, but I will not stop worrying about you or caring about you or making sure you’re safe.
I don’t want to make you feel weird, but I do worry all the time, and I can’t be sorry for that, but I will try to change my line of thinking.
” I pause a moment, then finish saying what I wanted to say earlier.
“I was hoping you’d stay home from school tomorrow to shop. ”
She slowly turns to face me, a small smile sneaking across her face.
“You’re going to let me skip?”
I shrug. “Sure, why not? I’m not your mom.”
She lunges for me, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Best big brother ever.”
I hug her back and hope I can live up to that title for the rest of my life.
“We should stay here tonight,” Chrissy says as she looks around her empty room.
“No, Chrissy, we—”
“I agree,” Cammy adds.
“Huh?”
Cammy moves to stand beside Chrissy. They look so much alike, you can tell they are sisters without knowing a damn thing. And they’re both so beautiful, and at the age that boys are going to be a pain in my ass and—
“Sleeping on the floor would be well worth being away from the witch,” Cammy says, interrupting my big-brother thoughts. “We can bring pillows and blankets. Actually, we could go buy that stuff now. We know what sizes our beds are.”
“We could bring our mattresses here,” Chrissy suggests.
“I am not bringing those nasty mattresses here.”
“We could… buy blow up ones?” she asks in a small voice. “I don’t think they’re too expensive. Please?” she adds, pouting her lip out. Cammy joins her in the pouting.
I groan, then go to them and pull them into a hug. “Fine, but if I wake up with a stiff neck because I’m old, one of you are giving me a massage.”
They both giggle and squeeze me back.
We go to the store and find the fluffiest blankets and pillows we can get. The furniture will be here in two days. Maybe sleeping on the floor won’t be so bad.
After getting everything we need from the store, we go to the trailer to get what’s there. Some clothes and things that mean something to us. I told both of them we would buy new stuff, so only take what is absolutely needed. The less nasty shit we have to take with us, the better.
Most of Chrissy’s clothes are hand-me-downs from Cammy, and some of her T-shirts and pajamas were mine from when I was her age. We don’t need this shit anymore.
When we have everything, we go back to the apartment and drop our stuff into our rooms. Cammy and Chrissy talk about where they’re going to put all the furniture while I work on blowing up the air mattresses and putting the pillows and blankets on them.
They look pitiful in the corners of our rooms with the room being empty otherwise, but hey, we have our own rooms. Finally.
The house is quiet at night; so quiet that I almost can’t fall asleep. I put a sound machine app on my phone and eventually fall asleep, only to be woken up a short time later.
“Cass,” is whispered through the dark. I sit up, the mattress squeaking beneath me.
“Cammy? What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”
“I, uh… I…” I blink a few times, and my eyes adjust to the dark. She walks in, and I see her dragging her mattress behind her, the blanket and pillow in her hand.
I can’t help but smile as I get up and grab her stuff to set it up beside mine.
“Wow, now I don’t feel so bad for being scared.”
Cammy and I both look toward the doorway, where Chrissy is standing with her pillow and blanket clutched to her chest.
“Hey, I wasn’t scared,” Cammy says, walking toward the door. “I’ll get your bed.”
I scoot Cammy’s over to make room for Chrissy’s, which she slides in when she comes back with it. We get comfortable on our mattresses, side by side, with Chrissy in the middle.
“Why were you scared?” I ask.
“I’ve never been in a room so big before,” she whispers.
“It’ll be easier when it’s filled with your stuff. It won’t feel so big then,” Cammy says.
“I agree. Each night will get easier until this is normal,” I say.
Chrissy reaches for my hand, then snuggles into her pillow. A few moments later, she’s snoring.
I wake up Saturday morning to Chrissy and Cammy, snuggled on the same mattress together.
I laugh to myself as I get up. Cammy slept with Chrissy a lot when she was younger because of the seizures.
She was afraid that we wouldn’t wake up if Chrissy had one, because no one was there to feel it.
Chrissy was the one who put a stop to it when she was eleven.
I hate how hard this is for us—because it shouldn’t be. This is a normal thing, and it shouldn’t be so difficult to get used to, but… such is life, I guess.
Things will get easier as time goes by. This will become our normal. I will do whatever it takes to make sure my sisters have a good life.
I get ready for work, and before I walk out the door, I check on them again—they’re still sleeping, so I don’t bother them.
Saturday with Harmon goes by great, as it usually does. It’s still my favorite day of the week. He hasn’t milked me again since that first time, but I think about it when I jerk off onto his food and I hope he will again.
When work is done, I make a stop at the cell phone store to get Cammy and Chrissy their own phones. I hadn’t planned on doing this yet, but since we won’t be going back to the trailer, there’s no reason not to.
I also want Cammy to get her license so I can get her a car.
This way she can drive to and from work, stop taking the bus, and bring Chrissy to school or anywhere else she wants to go when I’m not around.
I want them to have the freedom they deserve, but…
one thing at a time. I have to take things slow, so we don’t get overwhelmed, or worse, in over our heads.
The girls are thrilled, to say the least, when I give them their cell phones. I so badly want to tell Chrissy to relax, but after the last time, I keep my mouth shut and pray like hell that she doesn’t end up in a seizure. She doesn’t, and I realize that I do need to chill the fuck out.
We order food. Watch Netflix for the first time because we can afford it now.
We stay up late and wake up early to the delivery drivers knocking on the door.
It takes four guys over an hour to bring everything inside, and every time they bring a new piece of furniture, Chrissy gets even more excited.
But once they leave, I am truly overwhelmed by the number of things we are about to put together.
So, I call in backup and bribe Abe with beer and pizza to come over and help.
He said he’d do it for free, but of course I don’t take back what I said.
The four of us spend the day putting things together and with all of us giving it our entire focus, we get it all done.
Chrissy moves her furniture around four times before it feels right.
Cammy moves hers one time, knowing exactly where she wants everything.
I told Abe to put my stuff wherever he thinks works because I don’t care and I don’t have much to begin with. I didn’t need much. All I care about is having my own space, and my sisters having theirs.
Cammy and Chrissy both opted for a queen-sized bed while I got a king.
It’s the one thing I spoiled myself with.
Other than that, I only have one dresser in my room but I have the bigger closet.
My sisters got the other rooms because they’re bigger, so they got an extra dresser and full, matching bedroom sets.
Tomorrow morning, Cammy and I are going food shopping to stock up the fridge and pantry.
Chrissy is so excited about wearing her new clothes to school and showing off her new cell phone.
I want to buy them everything all the time just to see them smile.
I’ve never seen them smile like this before.
It makes me want to cry, if I’m honest. I’m so glad that they’re happy.
And I know it shouldn’t be about material things, but when you’ve never had them… they’re exciting.
But like everything in my life, it isn’t long-lived.