Shorts & Interviews

Bad Reputations - Alek's 19th B-day with his Family

I woke up to someone breathing down my neck, but thinking it was just Jay I swatted at the offending breath and flopped on the other side. Small hands poked at me and it took me another minute to remember that Jay hadn't stayed over at my house, and that her hands may be small, but they were by no means that small. That could only mean. . .

I shot up out of bed at looked at Char, her eyes were wide. I opened my mouth to snap at her for coming into my room when she knew not to but I closed my jaw with an audible thump as I took in my whole family standing outside of my room.

What in the hell?

I scratched my head sleepily and looked at them all in turn. Mom smiled at me, Dad was smiling too, Brent was feigning interest and Char was nearly jumping up and down. 

This is just too weird.

"Happy birthday, Alek," my mother said calmly and I jerked awake. Wait -- it was my birthday?

I scrambled for my phone and looked at the date. Yup, there is was, the date and it matched to the day I was born. Meaning I was now 19. How did I forget about my own birthday?

You've been too worried lately.

I shut the voice up and looked at my family again, they were all staring at me expectantly.

"Uh, thanks?" I said, but it came out as a question. Char jumped onto my bed and gave me a hug, before falling on the covers face first. 

"Breakfast is almost ready. Be down soon." My moms voice was stiff, but I could tell she was trying to be happy. Must be hard when you don't even want to be in the same house as your family to actually act like we are one.

Everyone except Char left and she sat up and looked at me confused.

"What's the matter Charlie?" I asked and her face scrunched up in distaste.

"That's a boys name." She informed me in her cute eight year old rage.

"I know," I teased her. "Now why the face?"

"Your bed smells like Jay."

"Well, Jay is here quite a lot. I'm sure my whole room smells like her." I pointed out, trying to persuade her differently.

"Yeah, it does, but right here especially. I think that pillow is the one she uses. Maybe that's it." I resisted the urge to wipe my brow and just nodded. 

"Yes, that's the pillow Jay uses when she stays over. That must explain it." Char shrugged, gave me another hug and skipped out.

I wanted to just fall back on my bed and go back to sleep, 

Somehow I knew that wasn’t going to happen and I was right when 10 minutes later Char came bouncing back in my room, telling me to ‘hurry up or I’ll miss out on breakfast’.

I threw on a shirt and made my way down the stairs to the kitchen, touching the wall to remind myself where to walk since my eyes were still closed in stubborn denial at being awake.

The kitchen was an organized mess, but my mom was standing there proudly holding a spatula with some pancakes next to her. My mouth watered at the blueberry pancakes with strawberries topping it off and a basic maple syrup drizzled over it all.

Mom hadn’t cooked for us in a long while, and seeing the food both made me happy and made me indefinitely sad.

I wondered why they went through the trouble; we all knew it would end in a fight either way.

I sat down between my bright brother and my happy go lucky sister and felt like the odd one out, being in dark clothes with a dark mood to match my dark expression. They both had hope, where as I seemed to have lost mine—as well as my faith that our family could still act like a family.

I watched as my parents carefully avoided each other, they didn’t speak they didn’t touch and they wouldn’t even look at one another. When I was a kid I used to groan when they would touch each other on purpose and share cute smiles and flirt and kiss but all of a sudden I wanted to take it back, I wanted to watch it because then at least I knew they still loved each other and that they would stay together. I finished off the pancakes, but before I could make my getaway, Dad spoke up.

“Not just yet, you have to find your present.”

“Wait, wait, wait, did you just say find my present?” I asked dubiously, not reveling in the idea of some kind of treasure hunt. By the looks on everyone’s faces, that was exactly what I was going to get, and I promptly let out a groan. Where the hell was Jay or Nicah when I needed them?

Probably hanging out with each other.

I scowled at the thought and continued the treasure hunt to find concert tickets for me, Jay and Nicah.