Come Again?

I was starving. That was the first thought I had when I rolled over and glanced at the clock. 8:30am, I ran my hand over my face, shocked that I slept the entire drive home and the whole night. “Well,” I groaned as I shoved back the covers. “I didn’t get much sleep the night before.”

In a sleepy daze, I wandered out of my room, through the family room and up the stairs towards the kitchen. When I pushed open the kitchen door, Zack and Mary, who were seated at the table, eating breakfast looked up. “Hey guys,” I yawned. “Do we have any Fruit Loops? I’m craving them right now.”

I had turned towards the pantry but I still managed to catch the look that passed between them as they watched me locate the container with the Fruit Loops on its usual shelf with the other cereals. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to be back home,” I walked over to the cupboard to grab a bowl and spoon before taking my normal seat at the table. “I loved spending time with the girls but I wasn’t sorry to leave that hotel yesterday.” Pouring some milk over the cereal I just dumped into my bowl, I told them that maybe the next time I’d take the girls camping or something.

I didn’t notice that neither one of them said anything at all until a couple spoonfuls into my cereal. “Zack? Mary?” I looked from one to the other and back again, confused as to why they were sitting there with their jaws opened, just staring at me like I was crazy. “Why are you two looking at me like that?”

Zack looked at Mary, Mary motioned towards me and mouthed, what looked like, ‘go on, ask her.’ With a worried look in his eye, Zack turned back to me and asked me what day I thought it was.

I laughed, “What day? What kind of question is that Zack? It’s Friday,” I hesitated. “July 6th.”

“What’s the last thing you remember Anna?”

“Asking Cassie if she felt like driving home from the city yesterday, I had a terrible headache.” Zack glanced at Mary. “What’s going on guys? Why are you asking me these questions?”

“Anna,” Zack pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. Without saying another word to me, he left the room only to come back a few minutes later with his cell phone in hand. “Tell me what it says on the screen.”

“What?” I took the cell when he held it out to me. “Why? What’s going on guys?” They didn’t say anything. “Come on, you are scaring me!”

“Read the screen,” Zack demanded.

“Ok…umm,” I looked down at his cell. “8:50 am, Sat - wait!” I shook my head. “That can’t be right.”

“It is,” Zack reached over and took his phone from me. “It’s Saturday Anna, the girls came home with you passed out in the backseat Thursday evening and you’ve been sleeping ever since. We tried to wake you a couple times but you barely responded.”

I was still shaking my head, I didn’t want to believe what he was saying, I never slept that long in my life. “You couldn’t have tried -”

“We did Anna!” He snapped at me. “Now I want you to be honest with me.”

“About what Zack?” I didn’t understand why he was so upset.

“What did you take?”

“Take?” I shook my head. “I don’t know what you mean Zack.”

“Don’t play dumb with me Anna, I want to know what the hell you were taking when you were supposed to be watching my girls! I swear to God Anna, if you so much as shot up or popped anything while they were in the room, it‘ll be the last thing you ever do around them.” He grabbed my arms, frantically pushing the sleeves of my sweatshirt up. “I won’t have drugs around my girls Anna!”

“Drugs?” I repeated as the whole situation came crystal clear to me - he thought I was high when I passed out. “I wasn’t taking anything Zack! I don’t do drugs! You know that!” I pulled away from him. “You know that!”

“Then what the hell happened Anna? How do you explain passing out and us not being able to wake you?”

“I was tired,” I yelled at him. “I haven’t been sleeping that much because of what’s been going on.” He didn’t look like he believed me. “I was tired,” I repeated. “I had a headache and I just wanted to close my eyes for a little while. I didn’t take anything, not even Advil, I swear!”

Silence settled over the kitchen. I was so upset at Zack for thinking I would do something stupid like that. Plus, I was scared because it was the first time he ever looked at me with that cold hardness that consumed him when he was on the job. “I would never take drugs Zack, you know I wouldn’t.”

The whole time he was going on about the drugs he thought I was taking, his whole body was rigid but when I finished speaking, his shoulders slumped and his head dropped forward. “We could wake you Anna.”

“I didn’t take anything Zack. I’ll take a drug test if you don’t believe me.”

For a moment, I thought he was going to say yes but instead he slowly shook his head, “No,” he looked up at me, “I believe you, you wouldn’t do something that stupid. We just…I just over reacted Anna because you’ve been acting different lately.”

I spent the rest of the morning outside in the back yard with Zack. He insisted that he needed help around the yard but I knew he was worried about me and thought spending time with me would ease his fears. I didn’t mind though, I didn’t often get to spend quality time with him because of his job and his family. For a couple hours, I was ‘transported’ back to a time when life was carefree, my parents were alive and he was my brother, Zacky.

“You know,” I said to him at one point during the morning. “For a brother, you aren’t half bad at all.”

Laughing, he told me that I was and always will be a pain in his ass.

Some time late that afternoon Zack poked his head into my room. “Anna phone’s for you, it’s Mike.”

“Mike?” I turned from my computer screen, away from the IM conversation that I was having with Scott while he worked. “What does he want?” I wondered out loud.

“Beats me,” Zack shrugged as he handed me the phone and wandered back out into the family room where he was watching a movie with Mary.

After quickly typing a message to Scott, to tell him I would be a couple minutes, I brought the phone to my ear. “Hey Mike, what’s up?”

“I knew Jordan was wrong,” he exclaimed excitedly. “I told him that you weren’t still in the city but he insisted that you were.”

Frowning, I told Mike that I hadn’t talked to Jordan for a couple days.

“Oh well that explains why he’s all grumpy.”

“You’ve talked to him?” I played nervously with my hair. “Did he say that he’s still mad with me?”

Mike laughed, “With the dirty looks he give me every time I mention hanging out with you this week, I don’t think he’s so much mad as -”

“Wait? Dirty looks? Jordan is in the city?”

“No Anna,” Mike chuckled. “Eric and I came out yesterday for the week, remember?”

“Oh!” I couldn’t believe that I forgot.

“Yeah, so we are here. It’s Saturday night and I’m stealing my brothers’ women for a night on the town, dinner and dancing. So get pretty and be here less than an hour or I’m gonna come drag you out in your pjs!”