Chapter 76
My unpleasant confrontation with my parents almost felt like a lifetime away.
I had been trying very hard to put it past me. I didn't exactly forgive them for what they had done, but being angry with them wasn't going to change anything now.
I wanted to be happy. And I wanted things to get back to normal. A good normal.
So, in the spirit of trying to have things back to normal, I agreed when my mother asked to have Lexi over for dinner.
Lexi was eating at my house all the time, but it usually was Anita's dishes taken to my room, or eaten at the end of a counter in the kitchen.
She hadn't eaten at the dinning room table in months.
Hell, I hadn't been eating with them in the dinning room either.
I wanted things to be normal again. If I repeated this enough, I could convince myself.
I didn't need to forgive them for what they let happen with Kendall. I didn't need to forget. But I could learn to move past it.
My parents were humans. They weren't perfect. They made mistakes. They were trying to make up for it.
And I didn't have it in me to keep fighting.
Being mad at them forever wouldn't change anything, but it would keep me in a negative headspace, and I needed to stop doing that.
So, that was how we ended up sitting around the table with a meal prepared for us by Anita.
She wasn't there that night because she had some girls' night planned with her friends.
I was pretty sure she had planned that evening out in consequences to the dinner.
She knew what was going on between me and my parents. She wanted to dodge the potential trainwreck.
So, she missed the first ten minutes my parents spent praising her cooking while my girlfriend politely agreed with them.
"Did you hear there's a big snowstorm coming up tomorrow. I cancelled my appointments just to be safe," my father then said, steering away from Anita's praising time.
"Maybe school will be out? I heard on the radio it's gonna snow all night and all day, and lots of wind," my mother continued.
Ohmygod. Were we really talking about the weather? Had my parents become weather talking people? Small talk people?
Where was Josh when you needed him?
This was the proof we should not have company if Josh was not also in the room.
Without him around, this family fell back to talking about banalities.
There were absolutely no worlds where a conversation with Josh would need to steer to talking about weather.
Maybe I needed to be the one that was loud and inappropriate if Josh couldn't do it.
"Are you guys seriously talking about the weather?" I asked.
Lexi just pressed her lips together beside me, keeping her thoughts to herself.
"What's wrong with talking about the weather?" my father asked.
"Not any weather! A snowstorm!" my mother added.
"The weather is a very popular topic of conversation," Dad continued.
"For people with nothing to talk about, maybe," I said.
My mother shook her head. "Nonsense."
"Mom, you're a writer, I have faith that if Dad can't, you at least can come up with something more pertinent than that."
"I could talk about my books..." she trailed over her glass of water.
Lexi replied an overly enthusiastic "Please do," at the same time I said, "please don't."
My father kind of shook his head at me. "What do you want to talk about? The current state of the American economy? Politics? Religion?"
I leaned back in my chair, discouraged. "We can't have people over without Josh."
"Josh was busy tonight," Mom said.
I rolled my eyes. "Josh wasn't busy."
"Josh was busy," she pressed.
I rolled my eyes again. "Josh is never busy."
"Josh was busy."
"I'm gonna text him right now."
"It's kind of ridiculous that we need Josh to be able to have decent conversations," my father said, before taking a bite of his food.
"Josh is the extrovert of the family," my mother agreed.
"Josh and Jayden," my father added.
The little black cloud in my head was threatening to make a comeback. Jayden that better son would have been able to keep up a decent conversation around the table.
It wouldn't have felt like such a monumental task.
But before I let myself spiral too much into negative thoughts, I told myself to calm down.
Awkward dinners between my family and my girlfriend were just a normal ritual, the kind anyone could go through.
Josh would be there at other times. It wouldn't always be like this.
Jayden had been different from me but it didn't mean he was a better son and I was a bad one.
"Personally, I think talking about your books would be the best conversation I could ever have," Lexi chimed in with a cheeky grin while looking at my mother.
I kinda wanted to roll my eyes again.
But at least that took care of the conversation for the rest of the dinner, while my girlfriend easily got spoilers from my mother who was more than happy to get on her good grace for the evening.
Eventually, dinner was over and we all went back to our specific rooms.
"Well this was... painful," I said as soon as we were safely in the comfort of my room.
"What was?" Lexi asked and let herself fall down on my bed.
"This dinner. Why can't my parents not be awkward like your dad. Dinner with your dad is always fun. Never awkward," I explained and let myself fall beside her.
Lexi shifted and came to lean against my chest while looking in my eyes, our mouths a breath away. "I like your parents a lot more than my dad right now, because we can go in your soundproof room and close the door and they're not going to suddenly pop out of a closet and say they're watching us like a shark. I love my dad, but I also hate my dad."
I chuckled, running a hand through her hair. "Horny Lexi likes my parents, but conversationalist Lexi likes her Shark-father."
It was my Pumpkin's time to roll her eyes. "You like my Shark-father because you haven't heard him say the same jokes for the last eighteen years. I'm not as easily impressed as you are."
I gapped. "If Michael knew you were disrespecting him like this."
Lexi snorted. "I'm suuuuuuure he knows."
"Oh, definitely."
"I don't think he's going to know about this though," my girlfriend said and pressed her lips against mine.
My arms automatically went around her waist, holding her closer to me.
She fully got on top of me, one of her hands slipping her my shirt—probably to get to my chest, my girlfriend was always predictable—our kiss never breaking.
I turned us around, pressing her between the mattress and my body, my hand going to one of her legs holding it while it wrapped around my hip, our kissing turning a little bit feverish. This was around the time we started to fumble around each other's clothes.
We were in my room, with no chance of interruptions. The door was locked.
We didn't have to stop.
But like anytime Lexi and I started to make out, and went it felt like it could turn into something more, into something serious, I had the usual thoughts.
Is this right? Is this what I want? Is this romantic enough for our first time? Good enough? What is Lexi doesn't like it? What if I don't like it? What if either of us doesn't enjoy it? Lexi deserves more than this, than me, because I was too wrapped up in my issues to wait for her like I should have had, and now I'm not giving her what she deserves.
Just, cool little sexy thoughts like that, which were great to keep someone in the right mood.
It kind of sucked that my medication didn't completely shut down these absolutely ridiculous ideas.
At least now, I knew they were ridiculous. But it didn't stop my brain from producing them.
And it was around that time that Lexi would figure out something was wrong, because she stopped kissing me, as she usually did when I got too much into my head.
And she didn't ask me what was wrong, she didn't look at me weirdly, she just smile at me, pressing one last chaste kiss against my lips, before entangling herself from me.
We both said nothing.
Like ignoring the problem would magically make it disappear.
_______________________
Happy Monday my little Pumpkins! <3
How's everyone doing?
This week was a bit chaotic for me. It was the Salon international du Livre de Quebec, which is like the big book fair we get in Quebec City every year, and since I work in a comic shop, we get a stand there. So I worked more hours. Unsurprisingly.
And on Saturday I went back home because it was my nephew's birthday. He just turned five! It's a lil crazy to me that we were doing Lego's together and that he actually speaks French and English with me. He's just my tiny lil baby nephew. We went to have him pick his birthday present with my sister and my two other nieces and I was walking around holding his hand and my oldest niece's hand, and it just felt reaaaaally weird that my lil Taters Tots are walking around and speaking with me, having very specific discussions about the toys they want, and they're not just giggling babies. Just very very odd.
And I work on Monday. So like. This was a veeeery short weekend. No writing was done, because I was just lazy on Sunday. I didn't even do my laundry. This week is gonna be another hot mess.
Oh well. I CAN DO IT. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. You know what comes next. (Lexi and Blake come next.) MOUHAHAHAHAHA
Anyway. It's 3AM. I gotta get up at 8AM. It's time to go to sleep. Bye. LOVE YOU GUYS! See y'all next week!