Flickering Reflections

Weddings (Chapter 1)

            "Now, we all know that Mary, my new wife, had a husband before me. He died eight years ago. I never met him, but I heard that he was such a great person." Hal said.

            "A great person?" I repeated to myself. Ha! My dad beat my mom, my little sister, and I. If those are the qualities a great person has, then I must be a saint! I thought about standing up and calling him on his mistake, but I supposed I was not quite drunk enough to do it yet. I came off to the rest of my family as the lonely, alcoholic loser; might as well live up to my nickname.

            After a few beers and another hour of party, I was drunk as a skunk. Why do they say that anyway? Skunks can't get drunk-silly people! Anyway, there I was, brooding at a table in the back corner of the room. Then I saw her: a girl that couldn't be more than twenty-one with blonde hair that fell down in curls. They spun around her head as she twirled on the dance floor. She was lovely; I'd have to get a closer look.

            I lumbered my way over toward the pounding music. Hopefully, I would not scare her off. I looked frightening for sure. My brown hair was messy, my eyes were bloodshot, and my general appearance was disheveled. If appearance alone did not scare her off, my voice would. My speech was slurred, not majorly, but enough to show that I'd had a good amount to drink that night. I know that I said that I'm not over Lucy at all, and I'm not. That just prevents me from having an actual relationship. I have meaningless, one night stands all the time; I could not tell you the names of most of the girls that I've slept with in the past two years. All they are is a good time-if you can call it that-and it eases my pain for just a little while.

            While I was stumbling my way over, she turned and wandered out of the room with her friend. I started after her, but then my attention was grasped by something else. The most recent toast to the newlyweds had been completed, and the girl on stage-whoever she was-said, "Now Mary's children would like to make a speech." The blonde was put out of my mind now; I had a bigger problem. I had to make a speech? What speech was this? I looked around, trying to find a place to hide. Unfortunately relatives were looking at me, waiting. It was times like these I really regretted ignoring the e-mails and the phone calls from the maid-of-honor, who had probably mentioned I had to say a few words.

            Heather, my younger sister, climbed up the steps easily and soberly. I was surprised that even she would follow my mother's rules of no underage drinking tonight. Heather would be twenty-one in three months. Even knowing this bit of information, my mother was still super strict on that kind of thing...not that it had stopped me in my youth. I had quite a rebellious adolescence. Anyway, I tripped up the stairs next to her. I'm sure all my new relatives were ashamed that they were now related to someone like me-single, date-less, unemployed, and highly intoxicated. I could give them more to be ashamed of.

            "Dylan!" Heather mumbled to me. "Did you even write anything to say?"

            "Naw," I shook my head. "I'd figure I'll wing it."

            Heather rolled her blue eyes; they were the same dark, expressive eyes I had, and our dad's as well. "I figured you would. So just read off my paper."

            Our mumbling ceased the moment we reached the microphone. A piece of paper materialized in her hand, and I could see that she had taken the liberty of highlighting the words I was to say. Heather jump started into her speech, "I want to start out by welcoming Hal into our family." She flashed a dazzling smile his way. "I'm so glad you made my mom happy again. You and I don't know each other very well; you weren't the one who took me to dance lessons, or beat up the boys that broke my heart. But I look forward to making new memories with you."

            My highlighted portion came up. I took a deep breath and jumped in, without trying to make it obvious that the feelings I was reading about were not what I actually felt. It was only a few sentences in before I started feeling angry towards him, and somewhat betrayed by my mother. "You weren't there to teach me how to ride a bike; you weren't the one to give me pointers on how to ask girls out. You'll be making a speech like this at my wedding, and if it is this cheesy, I'll hurt you. I really don't look forward to making new memories with you. I'll never call you my dad."  The audience was dead silent. Heather stood horror struck beside me. She was worried that my angry rant and crazed behavior would rub off on her; she already was the apple of my step-dad's family's eye. "Why are you here anyway? What business do you have? We're grownups, you have no purpose. Don't even try to have those 'father-son bonding moments' with me, because they aren't going to happen. I don't need you to pretend to be my dad!"

            My mother marched over to me and said gently. "Dylan, please come down from there." I continued on my shouting rampage. Then she got angry, "Dylan Jonathon Armstrong, get down from here this instant!" Childishly, I mimicked her as I jumped down. She snatched my hand firmly and dragged me out of the room and into the hall just outside. "I have never seen you behave so disrespectfully! I don't care whether you like Hal or not, but he is your new step-dad, so deal with it. He's moving in with us, and if you don't like that, you can move out. It is time you got back on your feet anyway-she isn't coming back, so you need to move on with your life and stop blaming other people for your problems!"

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So, What do y'all think so far?!