Balancing Act

  I glance at my face in the knife.  My reflection comes back watery and distorted in the shining metal. I seem so sad, my grey eyes look like they're crying, even though I'm not. Quickly I slip the knife under my napkin.

Trying to keep  busy, I kick at someone randomly under the table. My sister, Ella gives me an annoyed glance, but she's too busy twriling her buttery hair around her finger to snap at me. 

 "She's what!?” My father demanded, he stuffed a huge piece of steak in his mouth.

Thomas Pearson is someone you never want to mess with. 6’1 with dark blond hair, and deep wrinkles on his tanned skin. To top off his intimidating height, his temper is worse than a bull, a lion, and a honey badger combined. Which is a pretty frightening. I can always tell when he’s furious by the way a violet vain pops out of his neck. Right now it has its own orbit.

Jake, at eighteen has long passed the stage of shaking in fear of Dad, looked calmly at him. His brown hair was crammed under a baseball cap, and a cigarette (much to my mother’s dismay, anger, and smacking) was poking out of his mouth.

“I said she’s pregnant, simple as that.” He flicks his lighter on and off, the flame twitching nevrously. 

“Simple as-simple as that!?” Dad bellowed across the table, making the water glasses jump like pond frogs.

"Do you have any idea what this means!?” Flecks of steak spewed from his mouth.

Mom hissed angrily at Jake, "for once your father has a point." 

Dad's anger shifts from Jake to mom in a matter of seconds, "don't you fucking start with me, Jen."

Jennifer Pearson is also someone you never want to mess with. She looks much less threatening than dad, with her Popsicle stick frame, and dark brown hair forever in a bun. But she hisses like a jaguar and can shoot daggers out of her brown eyes.

Giving dad nothing more than a withering glare, she turns back to my brother. “She’s a sixteen year old, Jacob Elijah Pearson. I have no idea what her mother was thinking letting her go out with a punk like you.” Mom eyes were slits under her bangs. Jake rolled his eyes and took another drag of his cigarette.

"You guys are such fucking hypocrites," he mutters angrily. He may act like he's totally cool and in control, but I can see fear in his brown eyes. Jake is the most immature person I know, there's no way he can be a dad.

"Yeah, we are. We made a mistake, and tried so hard to help you not repeat it. But you never fucking listen" dad slams his fist down on the table. The sound makes  everyone flinch, nervously I twsit my fingers around in my palm.

"Yeah you've mentioned. How many times can a five year old kid be told he's a mistake with out fucking up in life?" 

Mom's angry expression softens, "baby boy, you know I never regret you." Jake scoffs and blows smoke up at the ceiling.  I watch it swirl around the slowly beating fan until it disappears. 

Dad looks like he swallowed a golfball. "Yeah son." 

The rest of my siblings and I, watch the scene at the table like a tennis match. Heads turning, switching from mom and dad, back to Jake. This was definitely not the way I pictured the last dinner before fall term started at Redmere.

The last dinner before I had to go back there. His face flickered in and out my mind, like the flame from Jake's lighter. Breathing became harder, and I gulped down my glass of water to try and clear the lump that was forming in my throat.

I had gone the whole summer building up a hard shell to protect myself from that day, and as I got closer and closer to seeing him it started cracking.

Don’t think about it. Don’t even go there, I chided myself. I opened my eyes; I hadn’t even noticed they were closed.

Each of my family members were staring at me, intent looks on their faces.

 “Halle, you alright?” My brother Carson says slowly, setting his coke down on the table with a light thunk.

I cleared my throat, “Uh, yeah just a little sleepy.” He raises his eyebrows, in an "I don't believe you" way. Being my twin brother he can see straight threw my lies.
      

 Jake, relived to have the heat off him, took the moment to put out his cigarette and sweep out the kitchen door. The banging of the screen door reverberated around the house.