Second Snapshot (Picture This Sequel: Niall Horan)

-Catch me out. [Chapter 57]

She was there, behind him, appropriate distance accounted for. And she was following him, following in his footsteps. Since when did that happen? She was supposed to be the one who people followed, he followed her, it’s her rules or no rules. Why this sudden change? He sat down, gave me an unreadable look. She sat down, would not look at me. This didn’t surprise me, with my Mother it was either you take everything out of a relationship or you take nothing. She had clearly gone for the first one, there is no median, no in between, you’re either in or you’re out.  She, was out.

There was an awkward pause as we waited for someone to fill this silence. Waited for someone to choose their first bone to pick with me. I was waiting for it to be my Father, it always was. He was always the best at acting cool during family crisis, as if nothing was wrong. Cracking a non-humorous joke, offering up dinner early, giving you a reassuring pat on the shoulder, or maybe even complementing your ‘new’ top you’d had for months. Either way, it was always him. Which is why I was beyond shocked when it was my Mother who was first to put her voice to use.

“I do wish, your invite had been a bit more detailed, Michael. I wasn’t, aware, of these changes in…Company.”

It was clear to me now that she didn’t know I was going to be here. But that just screamed my Father’s desperate measures, for him, I wanted to at least make it look like things were patched up with uneven stiches with my Mother but the point was that they weren’t, they weren’t patched up, or stitched together in any way, neither were we and as everyone second slipped by, every sarcy remark slid from her lips; I wanted to be even less.

“There were no changes,” My Father replied just as coolly and I was slightly taken aback at his bluntness. As my Mother’s husband he was always the one who knew how to handle her rages, Ellie and I, being girls ourselves, found it hard to not retaliate to her unfair and bitchy attitude and often found ourselves in feuds with her. My Father was better at handling her, or rather not, he just knew how to not get mad. He would simply stay out of her way and not bother her, whether as Ellie and I would give whatever we received back, much to the stress of my Dad, but things weren’t even like that anymore though. “It had always been like this, there was only lack of communication.”

He informed her and you could tell that him speaking like this was new turf for my Mum too and I watched as she raised an eye-brow and I could practically feel her belated blood pressure rising at this remark, it was not only the remark. It was the way he said it, there was no regret or any hint of leniency in his tone, it was blunt and to the point. In my Mum’s world, nobody else was allowed to use this tone but her, she had always been a hypocrite, we knew better than to comment.

“There was no such thing.”

If they were going to start arguing things right there and then, I really didn’t want to sit here and watch it with wide eyes not knowing what to do. So I discreetly slid my phone from my pocket as I watched them just glare at each other for a second and then I rested my elbows on the table my phone in front of my face blocking my partial view. It wasn’t as if I was going to do anything, it was just the general distraction. If you could call it that.

“Yes, I paged you of the arrangements and you never replied.”

My Father stated so matter of factly I was finding it hard to believe this was the same man that had raised me with such a different attitude towards my Mum’s retorts. I could already here the sparks of an argument beginning to ignite; it was the look in my Mum’s eyes, and the annoyance in my Dad’s tone. It was just there. I always remembered hearing these fights as a child, they would start off quiet, normally occurring at night as to not wake us, and then I would begin to hear everything start rising. My Father’s deep voice, silence and then my Mother’s higher pitched one, and then someone would throw something and you’d hear it hit the wall; or possibly the other. And then the door would slam and complete silence would fall, and then I’d creep back to bed. Keen not to be in the path of rage after a fight had taken place. Things were seemingly better by the next morning, but they always were, they had to be.