The Seven Houses

“Sienna! Time to wake up!” My mom yelled.

I pushed myself out of my light blue comfy loft bed and hopped down, hitting the carpeted floor softly. I was so tired, I had to get up at 6:00AM for another day of work at our small grocer. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE our grocer, although my dream is to be an artist, I like working at the grocer.

I threw open my closet across the room (five feet) and it hit my matching light blue wall with a bang, and scratched. I swore under my breath and pulled out some clothes.I got dressed in some loose jeans and a pretty white top, and I thought about jack, my friend since middle school, and my soon to be boyfriend, again. He was so cute! I shrugged on my favourite black zip up sweater, land left it hanging open as I walked into the bathroom. It was just across the hall from my room, and I managed to slip and nearly fall over on the warm hardwood. I swung open the door to the bathroom and shoved my tooth brush into my mouth. I brushed my waist length brown hair over aggressively, and furiously swiped on mascara, effectively getting a lot in my eye.

”sh*t!” I grumbled loudly.

my usually pale eye had gotten a bit darker due to the giant chunk of mascara that it had been contaminated with.

”Sienna! No swearing!!!” My mom called from in the kitchen.

I shrugged and rubbed my eye, then fixed up my mascara and made a beeline for the kitchen.

Our house only had one floor, and it was quite small, only two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a kitchen/eating room. when I was ten, mom and I painted the walls yellow. I stepped into the kitchen, the white tile cooling my socked toes.

”Hey mom, I can work today. you should get more rest,” I said to her, hoping she would agree atleast today.

”Honey, you know I have to work to keep my sanity, being here alone will make me go stir crazy!” she joked, her ocean blue eyes had a haunted look to them, even though she was only 33, she had enormous bags under her eyes, she even had a few grey hairs from the stress of the grocer management!

”If you really want to mom,“ I reluctantly agreed after a long staring contest battle of wills.

She pushed a plate of food towards me, and I grabbed it hungrily. It was rice noodles with eggs and bacon. Our Japanese culture mixed with our Canadian friends. I slurped it up, sighing happily as the flavours swirled in my mouth, filling up my tummy.

“so tasty as always mom!” I said to her. She simply just smiled and did the dishes. She probably already ate her share.

I hopped off the white and oak wood stool I was sitting on, grabbed the coffee she made me and walked down the short hallway to the front door.

I tied my shoe laces at the door of my black and white converses and tried a few ways of opening the door. It was always in disrepair and it took always a few tries to open it. I body slammed it hard and it opened easily, sending my flying into the bushes outside our house. I yelped as I got scraped in the face but sharp twigs and such.

My mom came running out and saw my petite figure in the bush, upside down.

”oh my goodness! Are you alright dear?” She called out to me.

”I’m fine, can you help me out though?” I asked.

*

I cleaned up my face and attempted more carefully to open the door. My mom quickly followed in suit, and we crossed the crusty old road to our small grocer across the street. I flipped the glowing CLOSED sign to OPEN. A few years back we painted the whole thing bright blue, but it was fading to a crumbly almost sky colour now. We got into routine, I was at the two cashiers with Raven, my best friend since elementary. She looked a lot like the raven from teen titans I suppose, e pet she was half Hispanic, and her hair was a bit longer, but she dis have purple hair! Sabrina was the old lady who worked at the canteen, and oh boy was she grumpy, but grumpy in a good way, she got the job done.

I heard a ding at the door and looked up. Jack was there. He had the most gorgeous eyes, bright blue, he had wheat blonde hair, and dimples whenever he smiled. He was broad shouldered, 5’11 to my 5’9, and was a talented American football player. Jack liked football better, but he was really good at American football, so he coached the highschool team. The only reason he didn’t get to go to a American football college, was because his grades, and also that nobody in this part of town had money.

”Hey Jack!” I called.

”Hello beautiful,“ he replied, and I swear my tummy flipped upside down. My mom gave him a stern look from one of the isles that made me laugh.

“Hey miss Hedgelow, make I take your daughter out to lunch today?” He asked my mom.

“ok… ok.. Just no babies!!!” She joked and we all laughed. Suddenly Sabrina‘s wrinkly frown of a face popped up from behind the canteen.

”Huh??? Babies? Who is having babies!?“ Sabrina‘s raspy voice echoed as she scrambled around the dark brown wooden canteen counter to us.

“no one is having babies miss Colter” Jack sighed, and wrapping an arm around me laughingly.

“Oh go now lovebirds!” Raven said laughing and pushed him and I jokingly.

“come on Sie Sie” that was my nickname from him, and when he said it, it made me get butterflies in my stomach.

We raced out the sliding door laughing as my mom smiled at us.

! this chapter contains mature elements !

Jack and I went to see all the scream movies, and I nearly cried I was so scared, but Jack just smiled and took my hand, and I felt a little better, but I mostly pretended to not be scared. Then we went to an old diner, styled like a 1900’s diner, where we had burgers, and we talked. Mostly about sports, and video games I had no idea about, but pretended to know. After that we went a walked along the beach, drinking fancy alcoholic drinks I wasn’t even able to pronounce the names of. At last Jack and I drove in his small red truck to his “secret picnic place” he said he reserved just for us. My stomach was turning upside down whenever he spoke, smiled, even looked at me.

“Sie Sie, we are here!” he said to me in a song-song voice. He parked in a sandy gravely small mountain summit, I thought the day was impressive, I was going to get a big surprise. He stopped the engine and hopped out, I was still undoing my seat belt on the old