Supernovas & Escapism

Chapter Twenty-Two

      I can't eat.

     Of course, it's not through a lack of trying. These past couple of days have done a number on my insides, and I really don't need that on top of everything else that's going on in my life. For the nth time in these past few years, I wished that I could be normal. But here I was, stuck with a plate of food in front of me, and like the past few days before, all I could do was casually push it around my plate with the fork. The smells had penetrated me, and made me want to savor something besides my own depressing thoughts. Even the usual dry chicken that my dad had tried to serve up was starting to smell appetizing.

     Ever since everything, my dad has tried in every regard to fill the holes of his broken family. He thinks he can do everything that she could, so that we might forget she was ever here. But he had never been a good cook; a good look at our kitchen drawer full of take-out menus would have shown anybody that. At least he made attempts though, that was certainly something.

     As I continued to push my food around my plate, looking down in abject hunger, Katy, my younger sister, droned on about her day, swinging her legs in an almost pendulum like manner. She was talking to no end about some boy who she thought was cute, and who she wanted to ask out. Even between scoops of food from fork to mouth she still managed to speak with the clarity and diction of a veteran thespian. My dad wore this face that looked like he was enthralled with her story, but we all knew better. It was the expression he wore when he wanted us to think he was listening, but where his mind was elsewhere. His head always seemed to be somewhere quite far from home these days.

     Glory, my older sister, was paying attention as much as someone could when they were using one hand to eat, and the other to text. Dad had long given up on trying to get Glory away from her phone at the dinner table, mostly because Glory never seemed to listen to him.

     "So he's dating Toni DeLuca right now, but I heard a rumour that she's just using him," Katy continued, her manic speaking filling up the silence in the room. "Y'know, because she's totally gay. I know because she'd been making eyes with me all freshman year."

     And it was at this point that the room suddenly sprang to life just a little more. Instead of looking at her with that vacant expression, a glint lit in my father's eyes as his brows furrowed ever so slightly. Glory, on noticing that the room had changed, set down her phone for a moment, ignoring it as it buzzed on the table some. Me, I just looked up ever so slightly, head on rested arm and eyes trained on my dad to watch what he would say next. He seemed so stiff right now and it was such an odd sight to see in the first place.

     Sensing that maybe she may have said something off-kilter, Katy held her tongue. She suddenly stopped eating, as if she were a deer that had been caught in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler.

     My father set down his fork, and intertwined his fingers, resting his head atop precariously. "I thought you were friends with Toni... hasn't she been over here a few times?" he asked in his proper tone; a voice he reserved for when he was confronted with something that he didn't know how to deal with. This was certainly going to be one of those situations. "What happened between you two?"

     "I dunno," she said, idly shrugging her shoulders, and trying to hide behind her curly black locks. "We just stopped being friends I guess."