The next day, I walked into the kitchen to spot Jake outside. My vision was a little blurred from sleep, but I had managed to pile my blonde hair into a messy bun atop my head, and changed into a basic white t-shirt with sweatpants. I sat down in the kitchen and watched my brother outside. He was sitting in the bright sunlight, under the cloudless sapphire summer sky above him. My brother spent a lot of his time alone. I suppose we were familiar in that respect. It hadn't always been that way, of course. The two of us used to spend a lot of time together, and alongside that I would spend time with Kendall. As I thought back on it, it had been sort of strange to hang out with her again after all this time, but it sure was nice, too.

My father soon became present nearby me, breaking me from my thoughts.

"Hey Ally, coffee?" he asked me.

"Please," I replied.

He smiled, and started up our coffee machine to prepare my well-needed caffeine fix. I watched as my dad worked. He had passed fifty, but he didn't look that old. I had to admit, I sometimes feared the concept and inevitability of my father's aging due to my separation anxiety, even if my father had prepared me well for the future. He had always been direct with me. He had even told me that if I didn't follow my dreams of writing and studying psychology that he would stop talking to me for a while. Thank goodness I followed my heart, in that regard.

As my father prepared my coffee, I looked back outside to see that my brother wasn't there alone. Anne had joined him.

My mother loved to enjoy the summer weather. It wasn't quite summer yet, but the climate outside would have you believe otherwise.

"I'm going to barbecue a burger," I said decisively.

My dad looked towards me and chuckled.

"Girl after my own heart, eh?" he asked.

"Breakfast can be anything I so desire it to be," I said with a smile of amusement, grabbing the ingredients I would need and placing them down on the counter.

Coffee first, then time for the much needed breakfast burger.

My father finished making the coffee, and then passed it to me with a smile. I thanked him and took a sip of it after several minutes, careful not to scald my tongue. I had spent far too many mornings recovering from a burnt tongue when I was trying to finish my assignments hastily back in university.

Once I had finished my coffee, and felt significantly more awake. I headed outside with the burger ingredients.

"I thought you were going to start being a vegan," my mother teased as she came to help me cook them up on our barbecue grill.

You could always count on mom to make good food. She was especially reliable when it came to the culinary side of things.

As the burgers began to grill, I looked across the garden at Jake. I watched as he sunbathed under our sycamore tree and had to wonder whether he was always so serious. This was due to the fact that even when he was relaxing, a slight crease formed in between his eyebrows as if he was busily thinking about something.

After the burgers were all cooked up, I proceeded to spend most of the day reading- I was currently working through classics- Anne of Green Gables was the current focus. I switched up my environment, reading in the garden, the kitchen and my room, of course. The only time I would break would be for the much needed syrup snack bars my father stocked up for us- Anne and Jake were allegedly 'watching their sugar intake', but I wasn't sure how long this would last for. As it always did, time sneaked up on me while I had been reading, and the sun began to set. By the time I got inside to help prepare dinner, it had become so much darker. The sky would soon be a nighttime blue with stars like mini jewels.

As I sat eating the spaghetti that our parents had made for us, I gazed outside our window to see an owl sat upon the tree outside. Owls were a rare occurrence, at least in our garden, but they had to be one of my favourite birds.

Sometimes I couldn't help but think upon the similarities between myself and them. The bird sat there, alone but content, save for its family. I had always been the 'shy' girl- an introvert. That had changed a little upon my meeting Kendall, though.

I knew that I was only twenty, but I couldn't help but feel older sometimes. Perhaps I just reflected on my life a little too intensely.

Anyhow, after dinner I helped my parents clean up, and then made the responsible decision to go and finish up some university work (after graduation forms are a thing now, apparently), and read through my emails to check how the job application side of things was going. Not mamy responses yet, but I was sure I would hear back from them soon. I did like to say that I could possess a quiet confidence, after all.

After finishing up the forms, it was only around nine p.m., so I took it upon myself to go and find my father in his study. Jackson had his sleeves rolled up due to the warmth of the incoming summer, and they revealed the scars he had gotten from a boating accident a few years back. Of course, my mother had warned him countless times to be careful after he had bought that boat a few years back, but my father was always the rebellious type when he wanted to be. Unfortunately for my mother, that was a frequent occurrence. Nevertheless, the injury only further established my father's resilience- he may have been through an accident, but he pulled through and continued working on his business- not only selling cars, but also building them, too.

I helped my father out for a short while until Anne came to join the two of us.

Jackson's eyes always lit up when he caught sight of my mother. That was enough to tell me that he adored her now as much as he ever had done. He had been loyal to Anne and by her side since the two of them were teenagers- and Anne had always been patient, she had waited for him to work out things with his job. Shortly after that, the two married. They were fairly young at the time, but it just allowed them to go on more adventures before my mother discovered she was pregnant with Jake in her late twenties.

Anne smiled towards him, and then pulled me into a hug.

"Now, when are you going to give me a few chapters of your new book to read?" my mother asked me.

"Soon, mom. Promise," I said.

My mother had a scope for the imagination, too. If I hadn't stumbled upon her works when I was only eleven, I wasn't sure I would have ever become so ingrained in writing as I had later on in life. I was glad I had, though. There was just something special in making magic out of words.

"For now, though, I think I'm going to head to sleep," I told the two of them.

My father nodded, an appreciative expression on his face.

"Hey, thank you for helping me out again, kiddo."

"Always. Goodnight," I said.

"Night Alison. Love you," Anne said.

I gave her a warm smile before leaving the study to return to my bedroom. I swiftly got ready for bed- into my silver pajama set, and then brushed my teeth, before returning to the coziest place on Earth.

The next morning brought with it heat, and I immediately felt tempted to take a cold shower, allowing for the water to wash over me and simultaneously force me into full consciousness.

After my quick morning shower, and getting ready, I headed downstairs to find my brother sat at the kitchen counter with his laptop.

"Are you working?" I asked him, stifling a yawn.

He gave a nod.

My mother soon wandered into the kitchen to join us and smiled. However, she then silently seemed to observe Jake. The two of us had always been skilled in knowing when he appeared to have a lot on his mind.

"Good morning. Are you okay, Jake?" she asked.

Jake turned to her with a slightly intimidating expression.

"I have a lot of work to be getting on with today. I just need- no distractions. Very busy," he stated in a demanding tone.

My mother caught my gaze and gave me a gentle smile of amusement, which I returned.

I could partially understand my brother's heavy involvement in his work. After all, once I got into a writing zone, I wouldn't want anyone to distract me either. However, he did have a tendency to be slightly brash when it came to his keeping focus.

"J! How's the work coming along bud?" Jackson asked him, as he stepped into the kitchen and grabbed an apple off the counter, proceeding to juggle with it and an orange.

My mother smirked but raised an eyebrow at him- a subtle warning- do not drop those on the floor. My father soon stopped with a subtly apologetic expression directed at her.

"Going well. I'm about to make a big sale," he stated with a prideful. My brother was powerful when it came to his work- after all, he was essentially the head of his own company at this point.

"Glad to hear it! Anyway, I'm out for my morning run," my father stated, kissing my mother on her cheek.

That would explain the gym clothes, I supposed. My dad was always energetic- captain of the basketball team in high school, he would have you know.

Nevertheless, I did have to point out that my father was fifty, and his morning 'runs' tended to end up being walks and chatting with our neighbour, and my father's best friend, Kyle.

Jackson soon headed out of the kitchen. In the meantime, my mother went to start washing up some clothes, and I sat beside Jake.

He didn't pay me much attention to start with, but I could tell he was growing increasingly frustrated by the screen in front of him.

He turned to me with a hint of irritation in his eyes.

"Are you okay?" I asked him.

"I don't know how this guy thinks he's going to get away with copying our designs," Jake stated with annoyance in his voice.

As with all things that appeared to stress my brother, I kept level-headed.

"It's a watch, Jake. They look alike," I said.

He gave a huff before turning the screen to me.

I felt my own eyes widen a little as I gazed upon it.

"I stand corrected. He totally ripped off your design," I said.

"Right?" my brother returned. "This is..." he just cursed under his breath, and I found myself being reminded of the stress my brother had encountered when he had been studying for his final exams back in college. He was forever a straight-A student, though.

Jake soon simply stood up from his desk, and walked towards the fruit bowl to grab a hold of an apricot, biting into it a little aggressively, I had to notice.

"Hey, don't worry about it. Get in touch with them. Let them know," I told him.

"Alright," Jake said with a sigh.

He wasn't the fondest of communication, but I was slowly getting him there. That was something which I had to find slightly ironic, given the fact that he had been one of the most popular people in high school, meanwhile I had been eating lunch with Kendall and myself for four long years. Regardless, I remained optimistic for Jake. He would be alright.

I let him be as I walked away from the kitchen, and returned to my room to continue my work for most of the day.

Once again, the sky was beginning to darken when I finally forced myself away from my computer, and headed downstairs to check on what my mother was doing.

"Look! A shooting star!" she said enthusiastically, as she watched the meteorites fall in the sky outside our window.

It had been a deeply disappointing experience to realise that the shooting stars I had been told about for so long were not actually stars at all, but hey, I lived.

My father smiled towards her and soon went to stand by her, wrapping his arm around her waist. When I saw the two of them together, the height difference became more apparent. My father was just over six feet tall. He towered over Anne's 5'4 form, and even more so over me. When I was younger he joked he was a giant, it wasn't until Jake over shot his height in every way that I realised my brother was in fact the real giant of the family. He had tried to get me to become known as 'pixie' for a while. Fortunately for myself, I shut that little nickname down before it could spread around the school.

"The shooting stars should be a reminder that you can achieve anything you put your mind to," my father said, glancing towards me for a moment. He could be pretty good at empowering our family, wanting to encourage our dreams.

"I'll publish the book soon, dad. I promise," I said with a slight smile.

He returned the expression.

I simply yawned.

"For now, though, I'm going to head to bed. Peace," I said, creating a peace sign with my fingers and returning to my room upstairs. It was there that I found the climate shifting, and decided to open my window.

As the night grew older still, nothing much could be heard outside aside from the gentle breeze, as I prepared for sleep in the little world of my bedroom. I could hear some cicadas, though, and decided to shut my window again so that I could sleep peacefully, my final thoughts of the day regarding Kendall and that I should probably reach out to her soon.