Chapter 11
Christmas Day,

The sun shine bright through my translucent curtains this morning as I lay there, a thought of nothing but what happened last night ran across my mind as I sit up at the edge of my bed, I turn myself to my window, looking down all I see is the little melted snow parts on the ground, patches of white lay strongly on the ground as if it refuses to be dissolved by the blazing inhospitable sun.
"Bailey!" My brother opens my door.
"What?" I ask and turn my focus onto him, he stands there in between my doorway with Christmas pajama pants on and a black fitted shirt.
"Come downstairs, mom has a surprise." He says and rushes downstairs.
I sigh and look back out the window. I force myself out of my bed with a groan and start heading downstairs. My mom and brothers conversation incoherent as I step to the kitchen,
"Bailey, will you take a seat?" My mom asks with a firm grin.
Oh, no.
I sit at the dining table, my mom pulls a key out of her pocket.
"A new house, just for us." Her smile is the brightest I've ever seen it, so is Ian and so is mine, kinda.
"Wow mom! Congratulations!" I say and stand up to give her a hug.
"Now we don't move in until the end of January because the family who's living there now needs to fix a couple things and finish a few extra finance difficulties." Mom adds on.
This is amazing, it's like things are going back to the way they used to.
"Any plans for today?" I ask, mom nods her head and my brother does as well.
"Also, Andrew has applied to several colleges, and if some get back to him after the break, he could be enrolled by the end of July next year!" Mom says to us, I look at my brother with the pure look of proud on my face.
Andrew does his usual smile, the one that reads "Yup, thank you now let's focus onto something else."
"Any plans for the New Year?" I ask,
"Actually, I was thinking Ian should come over, we would all celebrate and watch the ball drop." Mom says and looks over at me with a smile.
"Well, Ian is gone until the new year-"
"Oh, I forgot!" Interrupts my mom.
"Yes..." I decide to cut myself off from saying anything different.
"The parade is at eleven today, so make sure you get ready on time, we're leaving at 10:30 to get the best view." I look over at the clock, it's 9:47, I have at least an hour.
"Alright." I say and start heading upstairs. For once, it feels like I'm not suffocating at the enigmas of my father's disappearance. It was most likely someone father had screwed over. He deserved it, anyways. 

The festival is filled with smiles all around, followed by small-talk and fake sympathy for ones who can't visit their relatives. It's the social norm to act perfect. Intrinsically, we always try to one up each-other to make ourselves appear better than the other person, but for why? My family is far from perfect but everyone seems to think we are. Despite everyone's condolences, this is a small town that's deprived of self-worth and diversity. Andrew for example, is gay, and people still haven't learned to accept it. Or with an African American family or individual, why are they treated differently than the all-white American family?
We still have so much growth we need to accomplish.

After the parade, the sun vanished and left the moon, everyone was tired and were most likely sleeping off the stress of seeing cousins and distant relatives. For us, however, we sat at a round wooden table, a single mom, an adult boy, and a teenage girl, behind us are our closets we so rarely come out of. When you're picking out an outfit for school, you usually look in your closet and come out with one shirt one and a pair of pants, you don't bring the rest of your clothing out with you to walk around with? You pick the nicest, most social exceptional outfit to wear. You don't go digging for the one ugly sweater you shoved behind all your nice clothes you so seldom wear, do you? Well that's our skeletons, you're in your closet until you have to be social which means you put on your best outfit and close the door behind you, leaving all the dark and twisted secrets behind you, your skeletons. Even as a family, we sit in-front of our locked closets with our secrets.
"Alright, I had fun today. Goodnight, love you both." Mom says as she dumps her plate into the sink and walks upstairs with the little wine she has left her glass.
"Goodnight." Andrew says and walks upstairs, leaving me alone at the dinner table. When they both leave, I reach into my pocket and pull out the note that I found on my windowsill when I got home from the parade.

"Everything will make sense soon."

The note reads, the words have been imprinted into my brain for the last couple hours. The fireplace flickers on and I snap out of my gaze at the note. I walk with delicacy to the fireplace, hoping to not wake anyone by stepping on a creaky floor bored. I open the note once again by the firelight, leaving an incandescent glow on my reflection I toss the note into the fire, the paper wrinkles up and decays.
As I sit by the fireplace watching the letter burn, the burdensome, hidden thought reaches me.
I know this isn't over.