My Life After the Disaster

Chapter Twenty Seven

With Annabelle and Daniel gone it leaves Alexia and I alone with the kids. With no idea how long it’ll be till they’re back here again.

“Can we go back to dancing?” Molly asks, looking over at my phone on the table.

I walk over to my cell phone and pick it up off the table, saying, “I guess so. I can’t see why not.” I turn the music back on but change it to dance music. Then I set my phone back down on the table.

Alexia walks over to me, touching my arm and says, “Hey, what are you thinking about? You’ve got that thousand mile stare going on. Like you’re lost in thought.”

I shake my head, looking at her, staring into her beautiful blue eyes and smile. “It’s nothing. I’ll just be glad to have things back to normal once this is all done,” I tell her, reaching my hand out to touch hers.

“Are you two just going to stand there talking or are you going to join the dancing fun?” Julian asks as he dances around with his little sister.

“Of course I am. I would never say no to some fun time dancing,” I say, pulling Alexia over to dance around with the kids.

Alexia smiles at me as we twist and turn about, moving and grooving with the fast beat pace of the music. “You’re so beautiful Rose,” she tells me as she studies my face.

I blush as I notice how intensely she’s staring at me and say, “Thank you. But I’m not nearly as beautiful as you.”

“I think you’re both very pretty,” Molly says, smiling over at the two of us dancing together.

We both look over at Molly and say, “Thank you.” “You’re a beautiful little girl too. And someday you’re going to be a beautiful lady,” I tell her, smiling.

She laughs the most adorable little laugh ever and says, “I won’t be a lady for twelve more years. That’s a long time.”

“What? Really? I had no idea,” I say, sounding as if I’m shocked but I’m not really.

She giggles again, finding my reaction funny. “Oh course. I’m only six,” she says.

“Yes, of course I knew that,” I tell her, turning to look at Julian who was shaking his head at the whole thing.

We all continue on dancing till we get tired of doing it then we all sit down on the floor and I turn the music off on my phone.

“What should we do now?” Alexia asks, looking over at Molly and Julian who are leaning up against the wall.

“I don’t know. Can’t we just sit here quietly and rest?” Julian asks, staring up at the ceiling.

“I could use a drink. I’m really thirsty,” Molly says, resting her head against the wall.

I get up off the floor and take my empty container over to the sink, running cold water through the tap. I rinse out the container while I wait for the water to turn cold then I fill it up with some water and walk back over to where I was sitting. I hand the container to Molly and say, “Drink it carefully. There’s no glasses here so I had to use that.”

“Thank you,” she says, taking it from me. She brings the container to her lips and slowly drinks out of it at a fast pace.

“I’d say you were thirsty, you nearly have that gone,” Alexia says, eyeing the container.

She finishes off her water and sets the empty container onto the floor, saying, “I really was. But I didn’t know how thirsty I was till I started drinking.”

“Okay, who wants to play a game?” I ask everyone.

“What kind of game?” Julian asks, looking over at me curiously.

“It’s a word game called 20 questions. One person things of something and another person gets to ask them 20 yes or no questions. If the person asking the questions guesses correctly within the 20 questions then they win,” I tell him.

“It sounds like fun but I don’t think I want to play it,” he says, resting his head up against the wall.

“That’s not something I think I want to do either,” Molly says, looking down at her feet.

I sigh and look over at Alexia, saying, “I guess we’ll just sit around and wait for the rest of the time that we’re here for then.” I fall backwards, laying flat on the floor. It’s quite hard and not all that comfortable but I’m bored.

Alexia comes over and lays down beside me, cuddling up to my side. She pulls me into her arms and rests her head above my head.

Molly comes over and lays down in front of me saying, “I want to do that too.”

Julian stays right where he is while the three of us cuddle together on the floor.

Soon enough we hear the door opening up for the entrance and we all scramble up off the floor, running for the door.

“Did someone just come in?” Molly asks, walking over to the door. She spots Annabelle and Daniel then jumps up and down, smiling happily. “Sissy, you’re back!”

“They’re back?” Julian says, running out into the hall. He goes over to them and throws his arms around Annabelle.

Alexia and I come out of the room and walk over to them, smiling as we get closer. “Welcome back. How did everything go?” I ask, curious.

“It went well, but he’s a psychopath. That became crystal clear after he described what he did to his murder victims,” She tells me. “Nothing about being there was fun. He wanted to be alone with me. It’s the only way he would say anything and he tried to touch me. Daniel came in and punched him in the face. That was awesome.”

Daniel smiles and wraps he arm around her, pulling her up against him. “Of course I did. That man was coming on to you and he was being sick. I couldn’t take listening to anymore of what he had to say.”

“Awesome!” I say, reaching my hand up to high five Daniel.

“I wish I could’ve seen that,” Alexia says, smirking at me and Daniel high fiving.

“How was everything here?” Annabelle asks us, looking at her brother and sister. She seems tired out and just done.

“After you left we resumed our dance party and danced around till we dropped on the floor. We had a lot of fun. But we missed you,” Molly says, touching her sister’s hand.

“I missed all of you too. I would’ve rather been here dancing around than over there with that crazy man,” she tells us, taking Molly’s hand. “How about we pack up and leave. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go home.”

“Really? I was hoping we could spend some more time together before you went back home,” Alexia says, sounding a bit disappointed.

“Yes. I’ve just been though a lot the past couple of days. I’m ready to be done with this. But just because we’re leaving doesn’t mean you’ll never see us again. You might be Rose’s girlfriend but you’re also our friend,” Annabelle tells her, smiling at her.

“Yay. I want to be home in my bed,” Molly says jumping up and down.

“Thank goodness. I miss our home,” Julian says, looking at us.

“I guess if that’s how you feel we won’t hold you back. We can take you back to the hotel to get your stuff then we’ll take you to the airport,” I say. As much as I’ll miss having Annabelle around, I’ll be glad to leave this place.

“Thank you Rose. I appreciate all that you’ve done for us while we were here,” she tells me, handing the keys over to me.

We all clean up the mess that was made in the room we had been in, we grab our stuff once we’re finished and head out to the van, locking up the shelter behind us.

We get into the van mentally saying goodbye to the shelter and drive off to the hotel for Annabelle and her family to get their things.

It doesn’t take long before they’re back in the van with all their stuff.

Alexia drives them to the airport where we take them to get their tickets and say tearful goodbyes as we part ways at security.

“Don’t be a stranger now that I’m heading back home. I’d like to hear from you more,” Annabelle tells me as she pulls away from the hug, wiping her tears away.

“Of course not. I’ll text you as much as I can and call you too. Have a safe trip home,” I tell her as I wave her off.

With all our goodbyes out of the way, Alexia and I leave the airport and head back to the van.