The Things Our Parents Left Us

Chapter 1: You can stand up you know

                 

There are things in this life that people can't explain; love is one of them. When thinking on the subject it is easy for people to look at all the things that went wrong, who left them, hurt them, and who simply never loved them back. So the question is: how do people move past this?

Specifically, how do Ramona Grey and Adam Fink move past this?

Ramona crossed her arms, tapping her foot impatiently. Her twin sister had yet to put down her book about becoming a business woman in a man's marketplace. The book was small compared to the room, a vast juxtaposition in fact. The walls were white and dimly lit by the sunset outside that came through the second story window that spanned the wall from the bench at which Marjory laid like Cleopatra, but she was no queen, not yet at least.

"As much as I hate to interrupt your research on how to take down the patriarchy I would like to have an update on if you're going to the lake with me," Ramona said with a attitude as if they were still in grade school and she could bully answers out of her. Ramona could never bully answers out of her sister no matter how tough she was in a pair of short overalls that had one strap that was so long that it fell over the sleeve of her red plaid shirt.

"Off to catch your fish again this late at night? I didn't even know you would still bother me with that question, you know I have too much to do," she flipped the page of her book. Their mother had high hopes for both of them, especially Ramona's sister Marjory. Marjory had the looks which included small curves, the brains which sat in her small head that was decorated with silk like black hair that had always remained in a bob and crystal blue eyes that could find a respectable man from a mile away. These were the reasons she was the favorite of their mother.

Ramona didn't necessarily get the short end of the stick; she just chose to use it differently. Ramona had curves, she was bigger than her sister in which she had given herself muscle by doing every sport that helped her manage her anger, she had brains in which she knew every math problem and covered up her curious brain with thick black short hair that she put a beanie every day, and though she had beautiful eyes like her sister it was her whip like tongue that kept all men at a distance. These were the reasons why she couldn't find a respectable man by her mother's standards but by no means did this not have anything to do with seed of hate Ramona had accidentally planted in her mother.

"I was actually going to the bonfire, you know a social gathering for people our age."

Marjory laughed and finally set down her book as she stood in a silk robe. She knew Ramona was silly, a dreamer but this?

"Do you really think you're going to find some boy that mom approves of down there?" Marjory lightly tapped Ramona's cheek with her thin hand, "dear Mona you are so foolish."

"I wasn't going to meet boys, I was going to meet my friends and hang out like a normal teenager. Not that you know what normal is," Ramona snapped back, like any pair of siblings they had their spats but they also had an innate trust for one another.

"I don't need to know what normal is to know you won't fit in. Look how you're dressed," Marjory pulled at Ramona's beanie which she quickly held onto, "you look like a kid on the playground. Why don't you just stay home with me and we can talk mom into letting us buy some new clothes."

"I'm good; I'm going to go have fun for once," Ramona told her sister keeping her head high.

"Alright have it your way," Marjory shook her head as she laid back down. She knew her sister was stubborn, one of the few things she had gotten from their mother.

* * *

Adam Fink on the other hand, a boy Ramona didn't know much about yet, was pacing on his front porch while his friend Shawn waited on the sidewalk patiently for his friend, "have you not asked yet?"