Nothing Wrong With Loving

Chapter 8: Issues

"Gianina," My mother's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked away from my plate of food to look at her. "I'm talking to you, you're not listening,"

"Sorry, I was— um, thinking about uni," I lied. I was thinking about Cecily but my parents didn't need to know that.

"Então, como está indo a universidade? Você já recebeu alguma carta?" My father stared at me, his brown eyes expecting an answer from me.

"I'm still waiting for them to e-mail me."

"I sent in your application to the town's university," My mother said. My eyes snapped to look up at her.

"And why would you do that?"

"Because it'd be good for you."

"For me or you?" I snapped, suddenly very angry.

"For you," My mother was apparently offended I had asked her that. "I want what's best for you, always."

"Do you really?"

"Nina..." My mother gasped. "The closer you are to our home, the better."

I don't know if it was because of my mother's actions and words, or maybe it was Cecily's words still tormenting me, not leaving my mind for a single minute and making my days a little unbearable and my nights a fucking torture.

Perhaps it was the lack of sleep or missing Cecily, or being angry at Cecily and myself, perhaps it was my mother finally pushing my buttons and perhaps I was too concerned with my heartbreak to care to stop myself from saying the wrong thing... or maybe it was all of those things at once, I don't know but what I did know was that I didn't even try to hold myself back from snapping at her.

"Do you love me?" I asked her, she stared at me with her eyes wide open. "No, let me make it easier for you; do you even like me?"

"Nina, stop that," My mother shook her head, she began to put her plate away, ready to stand up and walk away but I grabbed her by her wrist, so she wouldn't leave.

"Can't you answer my question?" I asked her, my father called out my name but I ignored him. "Come on, I'm old enough to handle the truth."

I chuckled to make the atmosphere a little less awkward. I stared at both of my parents, my dad stared at me with his eyebrows furrowed as if what I was saying was completely unknown to him, so strange... before my mum could speak, I stopped her, I wasn't finished and I definitely didn't feel any better.

"All you guys ever cared about was Tobias," I told them, shrugging my shoulders. "You guys were always there for him even when he didn't need or wanted you, you were both there. Always. So quick and eager to tend to your little boy. Tobias was so good at everything he did, everything you wanted him to do. And I wasn't, was I? You two and Tobias had something special, even if your relationship with him, mum, was basically you forcing him to do what you wanted him to do. You had a relationship with him, a relationship that neither of you has ever tried to have with me."

"Nina, we try, we try every day but—" My father shook his head but I cut him off laughing.

"You threw him out like he meant nothing to you. He was not what you wanted him to be so you threw him out. And then you focused on me. Not even, that's not quite it... you treated me like I was the second option. I was your little project to prove to yourself that you could do it right and I'm tired. I'm not Tobias, I'm not the person you want me to be, I want to be my own person and you can't keep treating me like I'm your subject. Tobias did what you wanted him to do and look how that turned out. You made him so good at everything, why don't we ask Marcus if he was good at—"