The walk home was brutal. Olivia’s feet were killing her, she was pretty sure she now had at least three blisters on her left foot, and she was freezing thanks to jumping over a fence and landing in a mud puddle. It took her over two hours to get home, even with the short cuts through the McDougal’s corn field, and old man Colin’s huge pear orchard. Her cell phone had died hours ago, so calling for a ride was not happening.  Millington was exactly eight miles long, from one edge of town to the other, a fifteen minute car ride and that was it, you had seen all of Millington. But walking and driving through were two different things. Olivia had discovered that her tiny town was actually pretty big, once you had walked over six miles of it. By the time she actually got into town, she didn’t even think to walk into any of the stores and call one of her siblings who could drive. She just kept walking and that’s when Mrs. Temple, her old fourth grade teacher, slowed her car down and offered pitiful Olivia a ride home. She was so thankful, that she didn’t have to walk the last mile to her house. 

Three minutes later Mrs. Temple dropped Olivia off in front of her house and said goodnight. Opening the front door she crept quietly into the house and all the way into her room. Passing by Zoey who was watching T.V. and chatting on the phone.  Standing in her room she plopped down onto the floor and took her shoes off, which were caked in dry mud. She looked behind her dreading having to wash up a trail of muddy foot prints, but thankfully she had left no trail. She was just happy to be off her feet, and her legs ached from her long journey.  She had not gone to ballet practice since her parents died, so it was a given that she would not be in the spring production of swan lake. The weird thing was that it didn’t really bother her, normally she was all about ballet, and trying to get one of the lead parts, but as of late she didn’t really see any point to it all. She massaged her feet as she sat in the middle of her room. She tossed her dirty coat into the Landry basket, and just tried to relax. 

She crawled around the room on her knees as to not use her poor tired feet.  Going over to the wall she plugged her phone so it could charge, and then opened Spotify on her laptop. She clicked shuffle play, and Ugly Truth by Lauren Aquilina came on.  She had the volume up loud enough to not be able to hear the goings on of the rest of the house, and she sang quietly along with lyrics. She noticed that the letter she wrote Zoey was still on her pillow. Embarrassed, Olivia scooted over in the computer chair and took the letter back. She stuffed it in her muddy shoes, and tossed them under the bed.  She remembered Sophia saying something about having her homework done, but all of her stuff was still in her locker at school. She decided that was a good enough excuse to not do any studying at all. Looking down at her grass stained, dirt covered pants she begrudgingly stood up and went into the closet. She [url=http://i.imgur.com/NyhscT8.png]changed[/url] into some light grey sweatpants, a blue loose fitting tee shirt, and an old zip up hoodie that had once been Sophia’s before it was handed down to Zoey and now was Olivia’s. She slipped on her warm soft slippers, and sat back down at the desks. 

She unbraided her hair, and bushed through her long brown hair with her fingers. She listened to her music, and was still humming along to each song that came on. Let Me In by Zee Avi played calmly through her room.  Unloading her sketchbook and pencils from her purse she flipped through her artwork. Dreamy cheerful drawings of trees, birds, and people filled most of the pages. The newer drawings were quite different: drawings of the graveyard, unhappy faces, skeletons, and dying plants littered the last nine or so pages of her sketchbook.  She heard a knock on her door, and so she clicked her music off. Hoping no one heard her singing; she opened the door, and nodded to Claire. She followed Claire down stairs to help set the table. The little hands comment made Olivia suspect that Claire saw her as a child rather then the adult she felt like she was. The smell of lasagna was mouthwatering, but she mentally chastised herself, and calculated how many bites of the cheesy goodness she could have. 

She placed the nice tablemats down, followed by her mom’s favorite set of dinner plates. They were white with a pretty yellow floral pattern, and had been a birthday present from all the kids to their mom about 6 years ago. She opened the silverware drawer and counted out the forks and knifes. [color=A9D0F5]“Sophia has a date tonight, so I don’t think she’ll be eating with us. Is everyone else home?”[/color] She asked Claire wondering how many places to set at the table. Olivia liked Claire, and thought she was good for Riley. She reminded Olivia a little of herself with the whole overachiever thing…at least how Olivia use to be.  She heard a knock at the front door, and assumed Zoey would get it, but she seemed way to involved with the movie she was watching that she waved for someone else to get it. Olivia rolled her eyes and was just about to scurry over to the front door, but Sophia got there first. Standing on her tiptoes across the room, Olivia tried to get a look at Sophia's date, before she went back to helping Claire.