"smiling like there's no tomorrow to worry about"

Sometimes she just liked to walk and walk and walk and see where she wound up. And some nights she wound up in places like this without really being sure how. She could tell you the conversation that led up to it but it didn't really explain it. Not in her mind at least.
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The woman sat in the lawn chair in the late evening, paper plate in her hand with a heaping of food from a complete stranger. They had simply passed by each other, the woman was in good spirits and they made conversation. One thing led to another and now Isra was surrounded by a family that not only wasn't her's but was absolutely nothing like her own. The hot dogs and barbecued chicken on her plate felt like foreign food compared to what she grew up with.
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"here, take one." someone handed her a beer and she gave it a try, decided it tasted like shit and chugged it in one fell swoop just to not waste it. A cousin she didn't know but had decided he was her's for the night wooped and hollered and gave her a high five and Isra wondered if most other families were more like this on summer evenings. Games and chatter and people smiling like there's no tomorrow to worry about.
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As the night wares on and the family starts to disperse Isra realizes she doesn't know their names or anything that matters, and yet she's spent the evening with them and they've treated her like she belonged with them none the less. She can't help but feel like she owes them something for the experience, one she has never had before.
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There will be a day late in the fall, when a green haired woman they do not remember shows up on their porch, a gift in her hands. Something to repay them for what they have given her.

"It was like an eruption"

Road trip.
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The last time she'd gone on such a thing it had ended horrendously and perhaps that was why the woman was so tense in the back of the car with tinted windows. This one was not orchestrated by their mother however, it as entirely the idea of her siblings and that changed everything. The middle one was driving with the youngest in the seat. The eldest of her siblings sat beside her with a comfortable silence as he waited for her to loosen up. They waited for her to loosen up. They knew why she was tense and didn't rush her.
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That is, until the youngest got tired of the tension surrounding her and threw a wadded up piece of paper at her. Her eyes snapped to him he gave her a shit eating grin and threw it back. It was like an eruption.
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The driver turned on the radio and yelled at everyone to at least keep their seat belts on while the other three found everything small they could to toss across the car at each other. It was a familiar thing that transpired amongst them often. They often found their way back to their youth when no one was watching and this was the greatest home any of them had ever had.
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Her heart settled with the giggling of her youngest brother as the one besides her assaulted him with tickles until he was nearly crying. The smile wider than anyone had seen on her in months.
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Isra didn't know where they were going this time, but for once she didn't really care.

"here beneath the trees of their youth, they are home"

They would all eventually drift back home one day, it was inevitable. It was something about their family, their blood, it forced them back one way or another.
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It didn't make the room warm. It didn't bring cheer and laughter to the table. They sat across from each other in stiff polite fashion. The only real sound was the delicate clinks of their silverware on their plates as they ate because none of them wanted to be here for this. None of them wanted to be surrounded by their extended family.
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They eye each other over the table. The silent words parsed between them enough to tell a tale to anyone that knew the siblings well enough. They had never needed to talk out loud to know each other, a set of four all aligned together. Even as they got up from the table one at a time it was like watching the same one four times over.
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The moment the sun sets they all gather in the garden and its home again. Its the childhood they all remember. Quietly sneaking out of the windows so the rest of the family doesn't hear them make it outside. Isra is walking across the top of the fence already when the boys get there, jumping down on the eldest of her brothers trusting him to catch her as he passes by. They are like children again. Quietly laughing and throwing witty remarks at each other. A precious closeness fostered in a home determined to keep them separate.
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With every step they take away from each other they pull closer and closer. They are family, and here beneath the trees of their youth, they are home.

"the man watches her with sorrow filled eyes"

Small and quiet, she pours herself into the book like its the last one she'll ever read. The green haired child delves into with a gusto that even her father can't quite match though he tries. The man watches her with sorrow filled eyes. He can only hope and pray she never loses this, the drive that pushes her forward. The same thing he lost so many years ago and tries so hard to cultivate in her. If he can, if he succeeds, then maybe just maybe she will make it out of this box. She will do what he has not.
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"Isra, I snuck something out of the kitchen for you to try." he places the plate on the table in front of, a brownie topped with a decadent ice cream. Something fit for a person of their status to treat themselves with at the end of the day. She looks up at him, gold eyes bright with questions about what she has been reading and he holds up a hand to stop her.
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He knows she let go of her childhood a long time ago. She's old enough to have told him so. But every once in awhile he tries to return it to her. To let her be a kid again, trying things for the first time, playing in the den amongst the piles of books. It's hard but he's determined.
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She relents and tentatively tries the brownie, she looks almost as if it might hurt her when she first tries a bite. And then she gives him one and they rejoice.
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In the moments that she is a child, knees curled under her as she devours her brownie, he remembers why he wakes up at the end of every day still.

"Red as an apple"

She's frantic in her search of her bags. She couldn't have possibly forgotten it could she? No that wasn't possible it was one of the only things she was borderline paranoid over. Even if she wasn't going anywhere near the sun she had the small pack with her. Always always always.
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Skin was already turning red as an apple. Slowly but surely and it would get worse and worse and worse.
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The person she was with was innocent and unknowing. They called it a sunburn just a bad one. If only that's all it was. But got how she wanted to sit with them on the beach! Just once! Fuck, just once!
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Isra knew better. It was never okay. The rash on her skin had begun to be unbearable and she had to retreat to her hotel room, rummaging through her things until she found what she was after. In her panic forgetting which bag the medicines for her allergy were hidden.
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Nothing could fix it, but they would get her through the worst of it. She'd be up all night nursing the exposed parts, watching for how severe the reaction was this time. Scolding herself over and over again for wanting something she couldn't have- something that wasn't meant for her. Not now not ever.
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If only all it was, was a sunburn.