Chapter 23

Bing. The "bing" noise of the lights above me woke me up. I looked around me, saw my brother with his picture of Hayley, and the "fasten your seat belts" light blinking and making that ridiculous noise. The flight attendants were coming around with trash bags collecting everyone's left over drinks and trash. I realized that I had slept the entire trip. No wonder, we had left our house at like three in the morning, and of course I had been up until like twelve at least talking to my best friends. Yeah, three hours of sleep, not a good thing.

Then it hit me, it was all a dream. My parents didn't actually understand. Peter wasn't talkative and happy. He wasn't going to see Hayley. I wasn't going to feel safe in Kyle's arms as he hugged me. I felt like crying. I dug around in my bag, and pulled out a Balance Bar, the things that I ate all the time, a comfort food that was healthy and filled you up. I stuffed a bite in my mouth as my stomach made a noise, reminding me that I had missed the meal on the plane. At the same time, that could be considered a good thing, because I probably would have puked it up.

I put up my tray table, wondering how it had ended up down in the first place, and got myself ready for landing. Peter next to me looked like he hadn't changed positions since I had fallen asleep.

I poked him, he was leaning against the side of the plane staring out the window. I poked him again. And he didn't move. "Peter, come on, we landed."

I grabbed his shoulder, and pulled him back against the seat. He was asleep, he was a really deep sleeper. I grabbed his shoulders, and shock him like crazy, and he finally woke up. "What?" he muttered, sitting up straight, and rubbed his eyes. He had a red mark on the side of his face where he had been asleep against the wall. I laughed at it, and handed him one of the compacts from my purse so he could look. He muttered to himself, and rubbed it to try and get it to go away. I laughed, kind of. As best I could considering the emotions that were inside.

Once again, we were greeted down by baggage claim with someone holding a sign with our name on it. Mr. Morison, the agent, had once again impressed us. Pearl and Veronica would of course be joining us, they vowed that they would never leave the family, we had all gotten that close.

Our chauffeur was actually one of the agency, and a very good friend of Mr. Morison. He had known the family through Mr. Morison, so it was good to be with people we knew. He drove us to the hotel. Of course the fancy kind, and we entered our penthouse suite to unpack our bags and then bask in the glory of France. At least that is what my parents had said we would be doing. Adrienne and I were sharing a room again, Mom and Dad shared, and Peter was alone. Jack, the chauffeur, was not going to be staying with us. He had a family here in France, and figured that since we already knew the place, that we could handle it ourselves.