Shattering Crystals

"Why does Lynda keep going to visit her family?" I ask.

"Because..." Lorraine answers, "they're family."

"She said she hated them though..."

"Well, I don't know, then."

I feel weird. And... bored. Mainly because there's nothing to do, really. You would think that in a huge mansion, there's always something fun to do. But not really. It all gets boring after a while.

I find myself sort of admitting to missing school… even if it’s just in my head, to myself. The days feel so empty without it, even though it was always dreaded.

“It’s so boring here,” I say. “Do you think we should leave already? Head to the next place?”

“No…” Lorraine responds. “It’s gonna be a while before we get to stay in a nice place like this again, I bet. We should stay here until we know for sure what we’re doing. And Lynda needs to tell us too, since she’s the one with the money.”

“That’s true,” I admit, as she has a point. “Still though. I need something to do.”

“Why don’t you go talk to Connor or something? I think he was looking for you earlier, when you were stuffing your face.”

“That might just work.” I get up off of the white couch and head for the stairs, leaving Lorraine alone with her magazine.

“Oh, and Dana?” She says.

I turn back around. “Yeah?”

“Use protection.”

----

“Hey,” Lynda says, walking over to where Lorraine and I sit, staring out the window. I can’t believe it’s already mid-March. This proves that time does pass, no matter how slow it may seem.

“Huh?” Lorraine says, looking up.

“Uh,” Lynda says, “I wanted to know if you guys would come shopping with me?” Her statement comes out like a question.

“For what?” Lorraine asks.

“Clothes. I mean, I thought you would know all about this stuff…”

Lorraine’s eyes light up at this. “Sure,” she says. “When do you want to go?”

“Right now,” Lynda says, cracking her knuckles. “You and Dana come with me?”

“Why not?” I say. There isn’t anything else to do, anyway.

“Great,” Lynda says. “Let me just get my credit card, and I’ll pay for everything.” She flashes her mouth full of braces and walks out of the room.

“I wonder why she suddenly wants to go shopping,” I say quietly, watching Lynda walk away.

“Yeah, she’s not exactly in style,” Lorraine says, repeating what we had noticed about her the first time we met her. “Maybe she saw how fabulously I dress, so she wants me to put my expertise to good use.”

“Yeah, obviously. She seems to be a good interior designer, though. Shouldn’t that go along with clothes?” I gesture to the daisy room around us.

“I would think so, but maybe it doesn’t work that way for her. This is all kinda sudden though, so I don’t know. She’s never really talked to us much before.”

“Well, we are living in her house,” I point out. “Maybe she’s as bored as we are, so she wants to do something.”

“She has school though, so she might have a more interesting life than us,” Lorriane says. “Well, whatever. I’m not going to pass up a shopping trip. Let’s go wait in the lobby.”

We walk down one of the many staircases in Lynda’s home to get to the lobby. Even though we’ve spent months in this place, the marble floors and the whole set up still makes me feel like I’m in a hotel.

When we get there, we find Aaron and Elise sitting next to each other. Her head is on his shoulder, while he’s typing something on a laptop.

“Getting a bit close, aren’t you?” Lorraine says, lifting an eyebrow.

“Yeah, we’ve made it official,” Elise says, the smile on her face indicating greater happiness than I’d ever seen on her.

“About time,” Lorraine mutters.

We leave them alone and go sit in another part of the lobby, where they are out of earshot. We sit there in silence, just staring into nothing and listening to Aaron’s obnoxious laughing. Then Connor and Cody walk down the stairs. They wave to us before continuing to the kitchen.

“So… You and Connor, huh?” Lorraine says.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been talking to him a lot more. Are you like, together now?”

“I guess,” I say.

“You don’t sound that enthusiastic about it. Do you even like him?”

“I do, honestly. I just don’t know for sure yet. It’s nothing serious anyways.”

“Not yet.”

I shrug. “It’s definitely different from Cody.”

She doesn’t answer, and I immediately regret saying that. It’s still a touchy subject with her, and I still don’t know if I did the right thing. I can’t do anything now but forget it.

We are silent until Lynda comes down the stairs and over to us. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Okay, I have to call a cab,” she says. She looks through her wallet, appearing to double check the contents, then pulls out her cell phone.

“Where are you going?” Elise asks from across the room.

“Hey,” she says to Aaron and Elise, as if she’s just noticing them now. “We’re going shopping. Wanna come?”

Lorraine wrinkles her nose, a gesture of dislike for this idea. No one notices but me.

"So you're going with Dana and Lorraine?"

"Yeah."

"Oh," Elise says, then she smiles directly at Lorraine, a fake, plastic smile. "No thanks."

“Okay.” Lynda walks off and starts dialing a number. I walk over to the door and put my shoes on while she speaks, Lorraine following me.

“Why don’t you just wear your shoes inside?” she asks.

“It’s a habit. My mom always freaked out if someone had their shoes on inside.”

“Floors are gross, though.”

“They’re only gross because of you people who wear your shoes inside.”

“Whatever.”

“Let’s go,” Lynda says, walking over to us. “Taxi’s here."