Under the Willow Tree

Chapter 6 Harry

Chapter 6 Harry

I watched Lizzie walk to Ben's car. The curl that she had pulled on now hung loosely in front of my face. It used to annoy me when she would do that because it would be so difficult to get it to stay in place again without wetting it. I brushed it back and heard Ben coming down the hall towards the front door. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me he would be back soon. Nodding my head I closed the door after he walked out.

It had made me a little bit jealous when Lizzie had told me that Ben would be taking her home. My feelings for Lizzie had never been anything more than platonic but seeing her argue with Niall earlier had made me upset. I hadn't realized why until she asked me about Ben. I don't even know when my feelings for her had grown, she's always been my best friend and I never thought I would feel this way about her. We grew up together so me having these feelings for her made me feel weird inside. Almost like a creep, she was almost like a sister to me and to have romantic feelings for someone you saw as such was borderline incestual. Yet here I was, feeling jealous that my best friend was spending time with my brother. I'd have to talk to my mom about it.

Walking back into the living room to sit with my mom, she had now laid over the length of the couch and had Killer under her arm. I grabbed a blanket from the arm of the old rocking chair in our living room and sat where her feet were while placing them on my lap. I threw the blanket over her body and saw her snuggle into it. I was about to ask her when I heard her let out a small snore. Had she fallen asleep so quickly? I sat there watching the television as I waited for Ben to come back.

.

When he finally walked in the door I asked him,

"How was the drive?"

"Not very exciting, we just talked about some school stuff."

"That's all?"

"Yeah, why do you ask?''

"Just curious. Hey, do you think you could give me a ride to practice later? Liam was supposed to pick me up, but he needed to do some stuff before."

"Yeah, just let me know when."

Ben came over and gave our mom a kiss on her cheek before walking out of the living room. I looked over at her and she hadn't even stirred. Carefully sliding her legs off of my lap, I placed them gently on the couch and made sure she was all covered up before slowly walking out of the living room.

I walked into the kitchen and made myself a peanut butter and strawberry sandwich. Not grape jelly, I absolutely hated grape jelly. I cut the crust off and placed it in the freezer before turning around and cleaning up the mess I had made. As I was getting finished washing the butter knife, I had used to spread the peanut butter and jelly my dad walked into the kitchen.

He was home earlier than usual but I didn't question him. Mom had probably told him that she was home early, and he took off work. He was still in his work suit, so he had probably just gotten home. He walked over to the fridge and took out the eggs and bacon. I guess we were having breakfast for dinner. Mom usually made dinner, but I guess Dad had decided to be in charge of it today.

My mom and dad had the healthiest relationship I had ever seen. They showed their love for each other constantly and took care of each other. When they would get into arguments my dad would always be the first one to apologize and always bought her her favorite flowers, stargazer lilies.

One time they had a fight over this girl who had been bullying me in 4th grade, the biggest one they'd had. They didn't speak to each other for a week because my mom asked Lizzie to talk to the girl that had been bullying me and my dad told Lizzie that he would pay her to throw in a couple of punches. Needless to say, my mom was extremely upset about it, she said that it was wrong of him to use Lizzie as a pawn to get over his unresolved childhood trauma or something. Lizzie was more than happy to do it for free, but mom made her promise that she wouldn't. That comment made dad angry because he believed he was over his childhood, but we all knew he was not. As a result, they had this huge fight and my dad slept on the couch for a few nights. My dad finally agreed to go to therapy and made up with my mom.

I looked over at my dad, as I took my sandwich out of the fridge. He was cracking eggs in a bowl and had already set the pan on the stove to get it warmed up for the bacon.

"How was your first day of senior year?" he asked me.

"It was alright, nothing special. Although most of my classes are with Lizzie and Niall's in one of them"

"Where is Lizzie? She's usually hanging around here."

"Ben took her home not too long ago."

"How's her mom holding up with the kids? It's crazy to think that Mikael died almost 5 years ago. Is she seeing anyone yet?"

"Not as far as I know, why do you ask?"

I looked over at him with a puzzled look on my face. It wasn't strange for him to ask about Lizzie's family. After all he had died bringing Ben home, but nobody ever blamed him for it. Not even Lizzies mom, she in fact went out of her way to make sure that Ben never felt responsible but my brother being the extremely sensitive person he is, developed survivor's guilt.

"No reason, just curious. Don't you have band practice today?"

He looked at his watch and placed the bacon on the hot pan.

"I do, Ben's giving me a ride but not till 7."

He hummed and handed me the box of pancake mix.

"Will you make the pancakes? You know your mom loves when you make them."

I nodded my head and took the box from him. Setting my sandwich back in the freezer I took out the stuff to mix the batter. Baking and cooking were two of my favorite things to do. When I was younger, I thought I was going to work in a super important professional bakery but not anymore. I would work with Buddy Valastro and be on Cake Boss. It was an infantile dream but still enjoyed making things at home although I no longer enjoyed Cake Boss. I got tired of watching one too many fondants covered rice crispy treat cakes.

We finished making dinner in silence with only the sounds of the spatula on the griddle. Once we were done, I set the table and got the maple syrup out of the fridge. Real maple syrup, not the fake sugar syrup crap that gave you diabetes.

I walked over to the living room and gently woke my mom up. I told her dinner was ready and called Ben over. We sat in silence eating dinner. It was normal for Ben and I to not say much but my mom and dad usually talked about their days and future plans they had. I guess mom was too groggy from just waking up to say much. We finished dinner and Ben offered to clear the table and do the dishes as we had cooked dinner.

Mom said that she was going to take a shower and my dad went to change out of his suit before he sat on the couch and watched that night's football game.

I went into my room to get ready for band practice. We usually only practiced on the weekends but we were going to play at an open bar that Saturday, so we needed to be as prepared as possible. It would be the first public set we have ever done so we needed to impress people and not just to get booked again but to finally be discovered.