CHERRY. [JESS MARIANO]

Grass Salads and Piggyback Rides

Being woken up at four in the morning was definitely not my idea. But since I could hear the house phone ringing and no sign of it stopping anytime soon, I had to get up.

I pushed the duvet off me and stood up from my bed. My room was pitch black and I couldn't see anything except the faint moonlight from behind my curtain. I made my way over to the door as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

It's times like these that I wished my mum wasn't such a heavy sleeper. There could be an earthquake and she wouldn't realise. I opened the door and made my way down the stairs. The ringing of the phone going off like an alarm in my ears.

When I finally reached the phone, I picked it up and pressed it to my ear. "Hello?" I asked, my voice still hoarse from my sleep. "Whoever this is, you better have a good reason for waking me up at four in the morning."

"Cassie?" I recognised Rory's voice from the other end of the line. All the playfulness dropped out of my voice. Neither of us had tried to apologise yet and the tension hung in the air so thick that it made both of our mums constantly annoyed. "Where's your mum?" She added frantically.

"She's asleep," I told her curtly. I just wanted to go back to sleep before I had to leave for school. "What do you want?"

"Go wake her up," she told me quickly as I heard some muffled shouting in the background. "There was a fire at the inn."

I thought that I was hearing things. Nothing ever happened in this town. "A what?"

"A fire," she snapped annoyed. "You need me to spell it out? F-I-R-E. Fire."

"Calm down, Mr. Dewy," I retorted with a roll of my eyes. "I'm gonna wake her up."

"We'll meet you there," with that Rory hung up the phone. I put the phone back on the receiver and made my way up to my mums room. More than happy to wake her up.

~~~

"So, if you hold on to my hands like this I can swing you around." I took a hold of one of the little kids hands -whose name was Oscar- and spun him around, his feet a few inches of the ground as I turned around in a circle.

The sun had come up and five little kids, no older than four, and I played in the clearing in front of Luke's. Three of them -Toby,  Ellie and Martha- were putting pieces of grass and tiny flowers into the small plates that I stole from Luke's and pretended to cook up a meal for me.

Little August, who was no more than two, sat on the bench behind me as he played with a small daisy that I had given him. I set Oscar down with a deep breath and patted his head of dark hair lightly.

"Again!" He exclaimed as he took my hand and tried to spin himself around.

I shake my head at him. "Maybe later okay?" I tell him as he pouted. "Why don't you play with your brother," I suggested with a look towards August. Saying a happy 'okay!' he headed over to his brother.

I wiped a hand over my forehead tiredly as I tried to catch my breath. Despite the cold, I still managed to sweat lightly from all the games I had played with the little kids. I don't think I was ever gonna play tag again.

"You need an inhaler, Cherry?" I heard Jess ask from behind me. I turned around to see him walking towards me from Luke's with a smirk on his face.

I sent him a small smile as I spoke. "You got one on ya?" I joked as he pulled me in for a kiss. I head a chorus of 'ew's from all the kids around us. Jess and I pulled apart to look at them.

"Stop it!" Oscar exclaims from beside his brother on the bench. August had his eyes covered by his older brother as he squirmed in his seat, nearly falling of the bench.