Carried Away.

I woke up the next morning on the couch, covered up by a thick wool blanket. Everyone else must be upstairs because I could hear everyone talking and laughing. I slowly sat up and looked around the room. There were sections for each guy on the walls. I walked over to Jared’s, the one with the least amount of stuff. I looked at each picture, jealous that I couldn’t be there to see them taken in person. I traced the logo on the jersey, and felt myself start to cry. I pulled it together and moved down the wall to Marc’s section. I ran my hand over his draft jersey, and instantly felt guilty that I wasn’t here for one of the most important moments in their lives. I headed down to Jordan’s section before I could start crying again. I just stared at his picture from one of his first games. I ran my hand over his Team Canada jersey, and smiled as I remembered watching the game. I smiled to myself as I walked down a little ways to Eric’s section. I picked up his gold medal, careful to not pull it off the wall. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t hear someone walk down the stairs. Suddenly a hand pulled the medal off of the wall and put it on me. I looked up and saw Eric smiling.

“It looks good on you,” he said as I picked it up and examined it closer. “This is amazing,” I said in awe. “It is isn’t it? I still catch myself looking at it and thinking ‘Is that really mine? Did I really win that?’ It’s crazy to think about.” He slid it off of my neck and hung it back on the wall. He put his around me and steered me towards the stairs. “So I take it they sent you down to see if I was up?” I asked. He nodded as we reached the top of the stairs. Marc was sitting at the table with a huge bowl of cereal, Jared was making himself some toast, and Jordan was eating another peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

They all looked up as we entered the kitchen. “Morning sunshine!” Marc said with his mouth full of cereal. I laughed and sat down beside him. “Morning boys! How are we this morning?” I asked really excitedly, causing them all to look at me like I was crazy.

They all groaned. “Please tell me you are not a morning person?” Jared whined. I smiled and nodded. They all rolled their eyes and went back to what they were doing before. A few minutes after I’d gotten myself a bowl of cereal, Mom and Dad walked into the room, looking extremely excited. Which I’m not going to lie, had me a little nervous.

“Well boys, it’s official. Now, Kaylee, you’re not going to see you’re brothers a lot unfortunately because of their insane hockey schedule and you still being in school. So, we all decided, it would be best for you to spend a portion of the summer with each one of your brothers. Now, you can do that the whole summer, or just half or whenever, but it has to work for them too.”

I looked around at each of them, and nodded. “Full summer, if that’s alright with them.” They all nodded and smiled, making me think they were looking forward to this as much as I was.

“Okay, so let’s do this. You’ spend June in North Carolina with Jared and Eric, July in Pittsburgh with Jordan, and August with Marc. That work for you boys?” They all nodded and murmured yes’s.

“Okay, than it’s settled then. So when Jared and Eric head out, you’ll go with them. I think you said next week sometime right boys?”
“That was the plan, yes,” Jared replied. Mom smiled at all of us, and then clapped her hands together.

“Perfect.”