Day X

The next morning, while Donny and Angela were off at school and Roger was at work, Matt told me he was going to take the car out for errands and that it would be the perfect time to tell Rachel that I wanted to leave. I had to thank him, silently of course, for his tact. Rachel was doing laundry when I finally worked up the nerve to talk to her. Standing in the doorway of their garage while she started pulling clothes out of the dryer, I wondered how I would word it. There were no words to express how appreciative I was that she had taken me as she did. Where would I be, if she had left me in the store that day?

"Penny for your thoughts?" She was in the middle of folding clothes, her back towards me, but she knew I was there. I smiled and headed down the few steps into the garage and moved over to where she was, to help her fold the clothes.

"My thoughts worth so little?" She laughed, unfolding the shirt she just folded and doing it again. I had watched her fold laundry a few nights ago and noticed that she did that a lot. Part of it was probably an obsessive compulsive urge for it to be perfect, but I had a feeling that it was also probably a way of stalling, even if she didn't know anyone was watching.

"Of course not, but that's all I was able to find in Donny's pocket." I laughed, watching with a mild interest as she eyed one of the shirts that I had just folded before continuing into the dryer for more clothes.

"You can probably guess what this is about?" She nodded, sighing and placing the pair of shorts she was folding on top of the washer, turning her full attention on me. I stalled myself, not turning away from the shirt I was folding, unfolding, and then folding again.

"I'm not sure I could ever thank you enough, for letting me stay here. These past few days have been, to be honest, the best I can remember in a while. I just... I have to keep moving. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing but something tells me it's not here. It's somewhere else." Finally taking a deep breath, I lifted my eyes to face Rachel completely. She seemed to be torn between crying and smiling, so she did both.

"Come with me. There's something I want to give you."

We walked up the three steps and into the main house and then walked towards the stairs, finally to her and Roger's room. I had only been in there the one other time, when I told her that I would stay. Now, knowing that I was going to be leaving, it felt full circle.

"I wasn't going to give this to you yet, but seeing as how you'll probably be leaving soon, I suppose now is as good of a time as any. Here." She handed me a brown cardboard box, only a few inches in any direction. With her nod, I opened the box and stopped short at what was in it. A cell phone, black and simple, sat in the brown cardboard, with a charger and a booklet on how to use it.

"Rachel, I can't... I can't take this. This is too much." She shook her head, pressing it into my hands when I tried to give it back.

"We had another phone on our plan, but never had a use for it. It's mainly a way for you to keep in touch with us. If you say no, I'll respect that, but you should know that we want to know how you are, that you're okay." I gripped the box, running my fingers over the sides of the phone. Then I pulled it out, flipping it over in my hands a few times before turning it on.

"We already programmed our numbers in there. The entire family, besides Angela, has a phone. And I even programmed a note in there, with our address, so you can write to us." I turned the phone over a few times before hitting the contacts button, seeing that indeed, their numbers were programmed in.

"Once I get settled, when I don't need it anymore, I'll send it back." She leaned forward, as I had been sitting on her bed and she had been kneeling infront of me, and wrapped me up in a hug.

"Maybe you should bring it back instead. Don't be a stranger. And take care of yourself Charlotte." It was the first time she had said the name and I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face into her shoulder, laughing while I cried.

By the time that everyone got home that night, everyone had already been made aware that I would be leaving tomorrow. Angela was trying her hardest not to cry while she helped her mother and I make dinner that night. I remember the night before, clutching onto the younger girl while she told me her fears of losing her brother and I wondered if she had associated that with me now. If maybe she was losing her sister. I had to push that thought to the back of my mind so that it didn't make me want to change my mind.

We all sat around the table, holding hands in grace for the last time, and Angela made sure to add something about making sure that I was safe and well on my travels, her voice only catching a little bit. Through the entire meal, I could feel all of their eyes on me.

After dinner, Rachel told me to stay in the living room with the family, that she would pack my stuff up. I refused, three times, before Matt told me that I was fighting a winless battle. So with a small nod, and a large smile from her, I sat on the couch between Matt and Roger while Rachel went up the stairs.

"She's the best packer in the family anyways. By time we go on family trips, she's repacked all of our stuff three times." I laughed, remembering that my father had an entire order to packing our bags for family trips. It didn't sting as much, to think of my family, as when it first clicked that my family was gone. I could cry, I could scream, I could let it hurt me until it killed me, but it would never bring my family back. I wasn't sure when I came to that conclusion, but I did. And once I came to grips with it, it didn't hurt so much. Though a large part of me regretted sincerely that I didn't even have a picture of my parents. Would I forget what they looked like one day? Would I, instead of imagining my father's goofy glasses and crooked grin, remember Roger's messy hair and the scar on his nose? Would I remember Rachel's long brown hair and the smell of jasmine instead of my mother's own personal scent and the way she constantly lossed pencils after she tucked them into her hair during work?

Noticing that I seemed to be far away, Matt grabbed my knee, squeezing in just the right way to make me twist sideways and laugh. He had found out I was ticklish when he was using my leg to stand up one day and had held it against me ever since.

"Who is up for a game of Trash Rummy?" A chorus of "YES!" reached us after Roger spoke, making us all laugh as Donny went to the television stand to get the decks of cards. We moved to the kitchen table, which was for breakfast or, apparently, card games, and sat down in no particular order. Angela was to my right, with Matt on my left. Donny sat between Matt and Roger, who had an empty seat between him and Angela.

We played two hands before Rachel came down, smiled at me, and took her seat next to Roger. Seeing as how we weren't that far into the game, Rachel was able to get dealt in without us having to start over.

Before too long, Angela retired for bed. Donny was soon behind her, followed by Roger. Twenty minutes of just Rachel, Matt and myself playing silly card games, Matt excused himself for bed, kissing his mom's forehead and ruffling my hair. Rachel and I played a leisurely game of cars for a while, laughing at each other's silly mistakes. After a while though, neither of us had the urge to laugh anymore. Rachel had had tears in her eyes all night and I could tell she was probably seconds from letting them fall, so I stood up, gathering the cards to put away, and whispered goodnight to her. I would learn tomorrow that she stayed in the kitchen for an hour after I went upstairs, though none of us could be sure if she was thinking or crying.

When I passed Matt's door, I paused before continuing to the room I shared with Angela. Looking both ways, as if expecting to see someone poking their head out to look at me, I knocked lightly on his door. At first he didn't answer, and I told myself to count to five and if he didn't open by then, that I'd leave. So I counted to four, and then started back at two. This time at five, the door actually opened.

"I didn't mean to wake you." Even though I said this, I knew that it didn't matter if he was in a dead sleep. He would have opened the door anyways.

"Come on in." As I stepped into his room and he shut the door behind us, I thought back to the first time I walked into Evan's room, at his apartment. Evan had been a few years older than myself and had been living alone for quite some time. We stepped into his room and he had told me to make myself comfortable, though there was only a bed in the room and nothing else to sit on. What transpired that night, what felt like lifetimes ago, would not happen between Matt and I. We sat on the floor, our backs against his bed, and just listened to the sound of the rain that was falling.

When I finally started to get tired, I stood up and Matt followed. When I got to the door however, he called out to me. I turned around, not sure what to expect, but what I got was definitely nothing close to what I imagined.

He was holding out the tshirt I had worn to bed the first night I was there. It had been washed, because it smelled like the detergent that Rachel used, and was folded nice and small.

"Think of it as a parting gift." I had to cover my face with my hands as I laughed, which just made him have to cover his face too. After our giggles subsided, I took the shirt in one hand and hugged him with the other, which he returned without question.

"I'll see you in the morning."

The family had made plans to wake up early to see me off. Angela would go off to school a little later than usual, Donny had exams so he'd be right on time, and Roger said that he could be late to work for once, let everyone else deal with opening the building. We would wake up, have a nice breakfast, say our goodbyes. And then Rachel and Matt would drive to drop me off at the highway. They had asked me three times if I wanted to be dropped off anywhere else, that they could even drive me wherever I wanted to go, but I refused. They weren't aware that I was going into the disaster zone, and something told me that if they did know, they wouldn't like it.

I noticed that Rachel had left out a pair of pajamas and a change of clothes for tomorrow, which I was grateful for. After changing, tucking my dirty clothes on top of the rest, and tucking the tshirt a little further in than necessary, I changed into the pajamas and curled into my borrowed bed. That night, although I couldn't remember my dreams when I woke up, I knew that it had been the best night's rest I had had in a long time.

A/N: Holy crap, when was the last time I updated? I'm SO sorry for the HUGE gap between updates. I usually don't do that. I feel horrible.

Thanks for the reviews and thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.