Broken Glass, Broken Hearts (short story) part 15

“My grandma is away for a few days so I decided to come visit you for a while,” he said. “For a few days?” I asked in surprise. He laughed, “No, just for a while tonight. Seems like Jake and Milly got off to a good start.” I laughed, “Yea well, can you blame him? She’s totally gorgeous.” Andrew laughed and brushed his hand slowly through his hair and playfully said, “It runs in the family.” I laughed. I went into the kitchen and pulled out oreos. “Are you hungry?” I asked. “You bet!” he replied. I smiled and carried out the oreos to him like a waitress. “Our special today is oreos, sir,” I said in a totally phony accent. “Good, good,” he replied, also in a totally phony accent, “and one for the lady, too, please.” I laughed and we sat down at the kitchen table and ate the oreos. Milly and Jake ran downstairs laughing, and when they noticed what we were eating, they joined us. “Mind if we chow down with you?” Jake asked as he and Milly sat down and he grabbed and oreo. “What have you guys been up to for the past...oh, 57 seconds?” Andrew asked. Jake grinned, “I was just showing Milly some funny home videos Dustin and I made.” My smile faded. Jake’s main way of getting over his grieving was to remember the good memories he had with her. “You’re in them too Angela,” Milly said. “Where is Dustin now?” she asked. “I’d like to meet her.” Jake looked sad as he started to answer, but I cut him off. “She doesn’t live here anymore, unfortunately,” I said, trying to keep my cool. Jake looked at me with a confused expression. I looked straight into his eyes for a second, and then he nodded. I figured he had gotten the message. “That’s a bummer. I really wanted to meet her. Did she go away to college?” Milly continued. Jake and I said nothing, and Andrew flashed an expression to her that said shut your mouth. Her eyes widened and she said nothing more. She got the picture. Jake looked at me seriously and said, “Do you want to come watch the videos with us?” I was quiet for a second, and then I nodded and said, “Yea. Let’s watch ‘em.”

We all walked into Jake’s room and Jake sat in front of his computer. He clicked a button and a menu of the videos showed up on the screen. He clicked the video with Dustin on the swing. It went to full screen and I struggled to hold back tears as I saw Dustin on the swing at our summer house. She was laughing and saying, “Hello, viewers of this random home video! My name is Dustin, and I am currently on my swing!” I couldn’t see her face, but I still remembered it clearly. The video ended, obviously one of the pointless videos her and Jake made while they were waiting for the rest of the family to finish washing dishes. Another video came up. This video started zoomed in on Dustin’s face. “Hey, people!” she whispered. The video was dark, but not dark enough so that you couldn’t see her face or her surroundings. She turned the camera towards Jake and he whispered, “Right now, we are sneaking into our sister’s bedroom to try and pull a prank on her. Last time we tried this, we were to loud and we woke her up, so we gotta keep quiet!” He put his fingers to his. Dustin turned the camera towards her and put her finger to her lips, too. Then she turned the camera so that it was facing in front of her and she zoomed in on my doorknob as Jake slowly turned it. They opened the door and I saw that it was my room at the summer house. Dustin turned the camera toward her face and whispered, “Shhh! We’re gonna set up the camera so that you can get in on the action.” Then there was a crackling noise and the camera moved a lot as Dustin set up the camera on top of my drawers. “Shhh!” Jake and Dustin whispered in unison. I smiled slightly as I watched Dustin take the cap off of her lipstick and try to draw an ‘L’ on my forehead. She caught about one dot before I woke up. “WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING?” I yelled. Jake and Dustin broke into laughter as I noticed the lipstick in Dustin’s hand, quickly turned on my lamp, and ran to the mirror to see if there was anything on my face. I started to run towards them and Dustin grabbed the camera. Then all I could see was blurriness as Dustin and Jake ran down the stairs and all around the house as I chased them. I could hear laughter and screaming and then, suddenly. It was completely silent. Dustin pulled down the lamp cord in the little storage room under the stairs. Jake was trying to stop laughing. “We are trying to hide from Angela,” Dustin said through laughs. Then I opened the door and said, “HA! I found you!”

“Aaaaah!” Dustin and Jake screamed through laughs. The camera turned off. Andrew was laughing hysterically, “Sheesh, Angela! You’ve got quite a temper!” Jake and Milly were laughing to, and I smiled. “Good times!” Jake said.

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