Daemonium

“I bet you’re as sweet as pie, Cariño.”

-Xenous

10 hours and 9 minutes. I never thought I would have sat longer in a plane than the two hours it takes to visit my sisters, and yet here I was standing, stretching and trying my hardest to exit the plane I have been sitting in since 4:30 in the morning. I never would have picked to have my 30th birthday trip be in the U.K., Cambridge to be exact, but my sister wanted to be different from both me and our younger sister; so, she picked an out of country trip.

Tell me you landed

I pulled my phone out of my pocket as I made my way to baggage claim, weaving around people as I quickly read, and then replied to, a text from Gianna, my youngest sister.

Yes. I’m at baggage claim now. How is Lillian?

I told Gianna that it wasn’t a good idea to travel with Lillian. She was too much of an perfectionist, and asked if she was ten years older Gianna and I, when in reality, Gianna and I are both eleven months apart from Lillian, with me being five minutes older than Gianna. She said that it would be different, because she was the ‘younger’ sister, and I was ready to find out if that was true.

She made us three hours early to the gate and made us not eat any breakfast just to make sure that we boarded on time. And then-

“Gia, you ramble too much,” I murmured to myself, pocketing my phone. I needed to get to baggage claim, get my bags, and then figure out how to get to Gonville Hotel. My phone went off a couple more times by the time I figured how where baggage claim was. I could see mine on the other side of the circling machine and had a spare few seconds to quickly check to at least see who messaged me.

2 new messages from Amara

I was honestly surprised to see only two messages from my best friend. She was so against this trip in the beginning that for days she sent ten messages at a time, most of them links to news articles, of the murders happening in the U.K. I wasn’t too worried, though. Most of the murders were happening further into London. We would be safe, Amara is just being overprotective. Opening the messages, they were both along the lines of the same thing. ‘Let me know when you land’ and a ‘be safe’ message right after that one. I couldn’t be too mad, this was just her way of showing how she cared. I pocketed my phone, figuring I would just text her back after I got into and settled in the hotel. Hopefully I can convince Lillian to take Gianna site seeing and let me just sleep for a few hours.

“Or I’m telling her I’m sleeping in tomorrow,” I mumbled, using one arm to push open the doors that exited the airport, my other hand holding tightly to my medium sized, “old”, green wheely luggage with, what Gianna jokes to be a military backpack, settled over the extended handle of the rolling luggage. My purse, a cross body purse, was packed away in my suitcase; everything I needed on the plan easily fit inside the backpack. My phone went off a few more times by the time I had figured out how to call for a taxi, and, once I had buckled and the taxi had begun moving, I pulled out my phone.

3 messages from Gianna

1 message from Wombmates

I don’t remember which one of us had originally named our sibling group chat, but it was better than “Us Three” that it was before. I sighed, settled back against the backseat, and messaged Gianna that I was on my way to the hotel, ignoring her other three messages because they were simply still complaining about Lillian.

Holy shit. Hot men in the courtyard

I almost asked Lillian meant by a courtyard, until I remembered that her and Gianna were waiting in the hotel lobby for me. I ran a hand over my face, rubbing my eyes. I was lying down when I got there. “How much further until we get to the hotel?” I asked the driver after a quick reply to Lillian.

“Eight minutes,” came the reply with an accent I wasn’t expecting to hear in the United Kingdom. I glanced from my phone to the rearview mirror, but I couldn’t see much of his facial features aside from his eyes; a color so brown they almost look black. I instantly glanced back down at my phone when his eyes moved to look back at me. I switched chats to Gianna, letting her know that I was only eight minutes away, not wanting to disrupt Lillian’s talk of the men she sees in our group chat.

They have some money. Their suits are designer.

Eat the rich

I placed my phone in my jacket pocket after turning off the ringer because, even while sitting next to one another, my sisters will always fight over texts. And I was not about to listen to my phone go off every few seconds. I leaned my head back against the seat and let out a soft sigh.

A great start to a week’s long sisterly vacation.