#THE HASHTAG

09 | Poison Ivy

Everyone's allergic to poison ivy

Everybody gets the itch

Everybody hates that 

✝ Chapter Nine | Poison Ivy. ✝

        If there was anything I knew about my mother, it was that she could really make my life miserable if she wanted to.

        Her punishment for this Sunday evening was to send me to dinner with her sister, Joyce, and her two children, Brady and Hanna.

       I, like many others, am not the type to enjoy family reunions. I believed that extended family should be just that-extended. Knowing this, Mom sent me away with the three most annoying people I have ever met. I was embarrassed to share the same blood as them.

       My aunt Joyce had an odd fixation with beauty pageants. As a kid, she entered many pageants (none of which she won), but that sort of fueled her addiction with them.

       I remembered when she would try to get me to be in one. She claimed I was too boy-ish, just because I didn’t wear makeup. So yeah, I let her put makeup on me and my face broke out for weeks.

      Since then, she’s never asked me again.

       Besides, she had already passed the gene to her fifteen year old daughter. Hanna probably carried around a mirror everywhere she went. She was one of those people who stopped every time they saw their reflection. The girl was obsessed with perfection.

       She had to get her platinum-blonde hair dyed every week just so she could maintain the fresh color. And if you were ever wondering what to buy her for her birthday, it would be a $500 gift card to Sephora. Hanna drowned herself in foundation and mascara, and that alone made me hate her.

         “Oh my god!” she shrieked suddenly, almost making her mother stop the car.

          Aunt Joyce peeked over her shoulder, a concerned look morphing onto her face. “Honey, what is it?”

         “I think I forgot my Cherry Jubilee lip gloss!” Her bright blue eyes went wide as she spread her arms across the backseat, holding me back.

           Her mother sighed in relief, placing a hand over her heart. “Just use your spare.”

          “Mother! Are you insane? My spare isn’t as red as my main one.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder, flipping most of it in my face. “God! It’s like no one understands me!”

        “Chill out, Hanna,” I whined. “We’re going to be eating anyway. It’s just going to smear right off.”

          She sent me a nasty glare, narrowing her eyes until they were barely visible. “I’m not going to eat that disgusting food. I have to maintain my weight if I want to look like how Keira Knightly looked in Vogue magazine.” She looked me over, laughing at my appearance. “It’s not like you know anything about Vogue.”

           Okay, that did it. I could try to get along with her, but at the end of the day,  the beast had to be unleashed. “Maybe I don’t know about Vogue, but I know your thighs are way too fat to fit into a size two anymore,” I retorted.

        Hanna swallowed a sharp breath as she stared at me in shock. Unable to think of a better comeback, she snorted and began to scroll through her cell phone.

        “Hey Lemon, I didn’t know you got down and dirty.” Brady nudged my side obnoxiously and wiggled his eyebrows.

            “Call me Lemon one more time and I’ll squeeze you like one.”