Significance (Completed)

Significance - Chapter Two

Copyright 2012  Shelly Crane                    All rights reserved

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Two

            “It still boggles my mind how you can eat those things,” my dad said, as he’d said a hundred times before, but this time he sneered it instead of joking with me. “I mean, it’s pure sugar.  Sugar and starch and bad for you carbs.”

          “Are you saying I need to lose some weight, Dad?”

          We sat at the kitchen dinette. I say dinette because it barely fits two people. This was where we’d been ever since that ride home from graduation.  It was an utterly silent ride except for one ‘congratulations’ muttered from Dad, nothing more. I had been sitting there for almost an hour now, checking my phone and waiting for Kyle to text me. I never thought I’d ever be waiting for Kyle, but I would have done anything to get out of that house tonight.

          I did, however, have a text from Bish.

          Congrats, kid. I’m really sorry I couldn’t come, but the boss is on me and interns can’t really negotiate, you know. But I love you and can’t wait to see you. I’ll come home soon for a visit, I promise.         

          “No.” Dad cut through my moment of happiness with more grumbling. “I’m not saying that, stop being dramatic. I’m saying they’re not good for you.”

          “Dad, I’ve eaten honey buns almost every day since birth, along with thousands of other Americans. I’m sure they’re not lethal.”

          “Stop the sarcasm, Maggie. I’m just saying you could watch it to make sure your weight doesn’t get out of control one day. Your mother always said-”

          “Ok, stop right there, please, Dad. I have no interest in what that woman thinks of me. She left, so she definitely doesn’t get a say so anymore. She doesn’t care.”

          She was always on me about my weight. Of course, back then I just thought it was motherly protection, you know. Now, who knew what was going on in her head.

          I’m kinda short, I guess; five-three. My mom has always said I should watch it and maybe start doing more activities, such as joining the cheerleading squad again. Iquit my sophomore year.I was already on the track team, but apparently, our running shorts weren’t cute enough for her.

          I have always liked my body, always. I wasn’t fat. I wasn’t one of those girls that griped and complained and had conniptions every time I had to put on a bathing suit. And I’d never had any complaints from anyone else either. Especially not Chad, who constantly told me how he loved that I ate real food and looked normal and didn’t ask him if I looked fat every time I changed my clothes. No one except her ever had a problem with it or ever said anything to me about it. I refused to get a complex because of one high strung woman. And now Dad had to start this crap?

          “She does care. We just didn’t do what we needed for her. We took advantage. She wouldn’t have left if we had been more...”

          “More what, Dad? More perfect?”

          “You know what I mean.”