Twenty-two #3
My aunt was and always had called herself religious, but she liked to pick and choose when she would show that side of her. She only practiced it when she wanted to make herself look good. We had never prayed before dinner, but tonight it was as if we did it every evening.
We all joined hands. I was unlucky enough to be sitting directly across from my aunt, so it was her hand and Easton's that I got the pleasure of holding.
Aunt Macy hesitated before locking hands with mine, I think it genuinely repulsed her.
She had to hide it, though. Couldn't have Daniel thinking she hated her nephew.
Oh, wait.
"Dear Lord, please bless this food that you have prepared for us," she prayed.
"I want to thank you for everything you have done for me and my beautiful family.
I thank you for my lovely niece and nephews, and I thank you for this amazing man who is sitting next to me. In Jesus' name we pray, amen."
It was silent as we started eating the food cooked for us. The only sound to be heard was the sound of forks clanking against the glass plates and smacking of the lips. I played around with the food because I had no appetite whatsoever. Luckily, I hadn’t put much on my plate to begin with.
"So," Daniel started, "what grade are you kids in?"
Emerson refused to look up from her plate and Easton was too busy scarfing down his food to respond. To spare the awkwardness of no one answering, I did.
"Twelfth."
"All of you?" Daniel looked between us with wide eyes. "That’s awesome, are you triplets?"
My aunt answered for me as she pointed at my siblings. "No, those two are twins. Elias is a year younger, but he's such a know-it-all that he skipped a grade."
She masked her words as a sweet joke, but everyone besides Daniel knew the negativity that was truly behind them.
Macy was jealous that I wasn’t dumb as rocks.
She would make condescending comments about me often around others, and no one picked up on it because to the average person it seemed like she was complimenting me.
She would sneak them in so slyly that it was difficult to spot for those outside of our family.
Daniel swallowed his food. "That's impressive, you should be proud. I'm sure your aunt and siblings praise you for it all of the time."
"You would think." The words came out before I could stop myself.
Macy shot me a glare as Daniel’s nostrils flared in confusion. Macy sat upright and cleared her throat. "We tell him all of the time how proud we are, don't we?"
She was waiting for the twins’ response. Easton hummed in agreement instead of using actual words. Emerson looked up from her plate, gave the fakest smile possible, and focused on her food again.
"We can thank his mother for every smart bone he has in that body of his. It's her genes that gave him all of the knowledge."
Her hate for our father was old at this point.
She preached so much hate to us about our dad that I used to hate him too.
Macy would say that I was the way I was because of him.
Rude, a smart-ass, and just a shitty person in general.
It didn't make sense to me at first. I was four months old when he died, how could he have an impact on who I am today?
But I eventually started to understand that she thought I was all of those things because she believed he was those things.
I was a product of him whether he was alive or not. She passed those beliefs to the twins.
So, my aunt gives the credits of my smarts to my mother, her sister. According to her, there was no way that I could have inherited any of that from my dad.
"When the tragedy of their parents' death happened, I stepped up and raised the three of them. The twins were over a year old and Elias only four months.”
I resisted the urge to scoff at the lies she was spewing. She didn't do anything but put a roof above our heads. Love wasn't something that I had ever experienced in her house.
Macy kept glancing at my plate, and I knew she was getting irritated that I was barely touching it.
I took a bite to find it was just as it always was: horrible.
I realized that if I prolong the chewing then she couldn’t say I wasn’t eating it.
Sure, it would stay in my mouth longer, but at least I could eat less.
Emerson looked up from her plate with a mischievous smile. It was a smile that we didn’t get to see too often, but when it did come up we knew whatever she was about to say was going to be devious. All I could do was brace myself.
"Yes, you've raised us to be such great, well-rounded kids," Emerson said, her voice eerily calm.
"You’ve got one who spends the majority of his days either high as a kite or taking his anger out on his younger brother, another who has so many empty bottles of alcohol under his bed that you'd think he owns a goddamn liquor store, and one more who is failing school and may or may not be pregnant. "
Daniel’s jaw was dropped so low it might as well have been on the floor, Easton was smiling proudly, and I was frozen in place.
My aunt’s eyes were open so wide they were practically popping out of her head.
My sister sat there calmly as if she hadn’t just revealed to us all that she could possibly have a kid.
“Pregnant?” Macy’s fists hit the table as she yelled. “I refuse to raise another one of you!”
Emerson had a knack for lying to cause drama. There was no way she was telling the truth, she knew better than that. She would never be careless enough to get pregnant because she would never want to force her child to live like we did. She was lying, she had to be.
Daniel fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat while my aunt was fuming. Emerson was super unbothered, and I know that made Macy even more angry. I was too stunned to speak, but I wasn’t going to say anything anyway. Easton’s pride had begun to fade once he fully grasped what Emerson had just revealed.
"She’s…she is joking. Her jokes are not funny, but she's joking." Macy was trying to fix the tension for Daniel.
It was silent for a while until Daniel broke it by complimenting his girlfriend's cooking. She was overjoyed that someone thought it was good. I got away with eating three bites and trashing the rest because Macy was too occupied with her boo.
Once Daniel left, Macy was thrilled to finally have the opportunity to let out all the anger she had been holding back.
Emerson felt that because Macy had grounded us before dinner even started, she had nothing to lose.
Ruining Macy’s relationship was more important than her freedom, but she ended up sacrificing our freedom as well.
Now Emerson, Easton, and I weren’t supposed to go anywhere but to school and back for two weeks.
I was right that she was not truly pregnant. I had to ask her multiple times before she’d answer me, but she ended up assuring me that she was just stirring up drama. The part about her being on the verge of failing school, however, was true.
I laid awake in my bed for hours. The twins had fallen asleep a long time ago, but I was still trying to. When I had alcohol in my system, I tended to make decisions that I shouldn't. Sober me wouldn’t have texted Javier.
Me: Family dinners suck ass.
His reply was instant.
Javier: that bad?
Me: Yep. I’d rather be studying with you
Javier: careful…people might start thinking you actually like me.
I bit my bottom lip as I turned over on my other side in the bed, typing and deleted my messages repeatedly. I did that a couple of times before finally hitting ‘send.’
Me: Maybe I do
Me : What if I said I miss you?
The typing bubble appeared, then disappeared, and then reappeared again. My chest felt tight as I waited for his reply.
Javier: i would say you’re lucky because I miss you too
Javier: but don’t say it if you don’t mean it. no take-backs
Me: I miss you
Javier: so come over tomorrow and fix it
Me: But what if we can’t focus on studying…
Javier: oh yeah, I forgot how irresistibly distracting I am
The typing bubbles appeared, then disappeared, and then reappeared again before the message was sent.
Javier: then we don’t study
The cocky bastard had me smiling at my phone like a fool.
I would no doubt be shy about our messages in the morning since Javier had a thing for making me timid around him.
I was still trying to figure out why that happened.
To figure out why when he said certain things I felt butterflies in my stomach and couldn’t stop smiling.
Me: Goodnight sir arrogant
Javier: see you tomorrow, Eli