A Traumatic Life Lesson on How to Flirt

Chapter Two

Within the first few weeks of their marriage, Mike and mom instated a mandatory family dinner. The cause of the dreadful evening was because we all lived together yet barely spoke or made any sort of contact with one another. I would rather have kept it that way.

The purpose of the dinners: forced family bonding. In reality, the evenings consist of the generalized topic "How was your day" and many others much similar to it. Then following are everlasting awkward silences and the almost silent sounds of discomfort.

Forks squeak on our plates as we twirl up the last of our spaghetti. I stab at my final meatball. I look up just long enough to notice that Brynn is only a quarter of the way done. She has the smallest portion and yet she eats slower than a snail. Slowly she swirls a small lady like fork full of her spaghetti. She raises it to her mouth and chews about twenty times before she even picks up her fork once again. I sigh loudly as I lean back in my chair. Brynn glowers at me, and seems to take an extra long time chewing her next bite. The rule is that we can't leave the table until everyone is done. This should be just as painful to her, but causing my misery with boys just won't be enough. She has to ruin my Friday night also.

"Will you hurry up?" I grumble.

"Excuse me for taking my time." She says twirling a small fork-full of spaghetti. "At least I'm trying to be lady-like."

Mike clears his throat with a warning. He props his elbows up on the table as I can tell he's desperately searching for a conversation topic to stop our bickering.

Much like his daughter, Mike looks like he should be on the cover of a Calvin Klein ad. Shockingly, instead he's an accountant. His blond hair shows not one hoary colored strand, and it's slicked back with an unfathomable amount of hair gel. Even his skin shows absolutely no indication of age, which leads me to assume Mr. Marsh isn't shy of face lifts, unless he's truly a life sized Ken doll. He even goes to LA Fitness every morning, including weekends. The results show in his bulging arm and leg muscles.

And this guy's an accountant.

My mother looks over at him as she takes a bite of her garlic bread. He glances over at her and they seem to silently converse. My eyes sink back down to my empty plate in attempt to avoid their disgusting goo goo eyes.

"So we've come to a decision." Mike shatters the unbearable silence as he wipes his face with a paper napkin.

"A fun decision." My mom adds. I roll my eyes as she stares me down across the table. The last time they made a 'fun' decision, I spent my entire weekend hiking. On top of the dreaded family bonding, I was eaten alive by bugs, and I had to listen to Brynn complain about every thing she could possibly find something wrong with. Plus, I had to eat fish that we caught ourselves. I don't even like fish, but Mike insisted we eat it anyways. (Excluding Brynn because she's a precious vegetarian) But he also failed to share that he has no idea how to gut and prepare fish properly.

You can probably guess what happened after that.

"What is it?" Brynn asks as if she is sincerely excited. My mother looks between Brynn and me. Even without words she seems to say 'See, Brynn's optimistic.'

"Well, we know we kind of rushed into the wedding," He places his hand on my mom's. "And we understand that this situation was a bit unfair to you both." I nod, waiting for him to continue. So far, this isn't too bad. Perhaps they're finally seeing my side of things.

"Brynn," My mom looks at her stepdaughter who beams up at her like a puppy dog. Then she looks to me. I cross my arms. "Penny, we feel like there has been a lot more friction between you two than there should be." Where have you been, mom? "We made you live together, but you haven't really had the chance to get to know each other as well as you should."