Page 17 of Bad to the Bone

“Then you should take it up with the girls who attacked Shannon.” Kim finishes his sentence, leaving him flabbergasted and red in the face.

“If you don’t mind, where is Shannon,” my mother asks quietly, putting her tea cup down.

“She’s in her room,” Kim offers, without making any move to call her out.

“May I meet her?”

“Sure,” Kim agrees, calling Shannon out to say hello.

Shannon comes padding softly down the hall. Her outfit is a near replica of mine, the same faded jeans and white shirt. Her hair is tied back in a ponytail and her face is bare of any cosmetics. She stands beside me, leaning against the wall much the same way I am standing. I don’t move. I don’t let on that I know what’s going on here.

The semi-permanent smile that my mother always wears during tense situations slips from her face and her eyes widen in disbelief. Despite the fact that Shannon is a blonde, the similarities in our bone structure is unmistakable. The shape of our nose, cheekbones, even the set of our jaw is the same. Standing the way we are, we don’t look like lovers. We look like twins.

My father visibly pales as he looks Shannon up and down but he remains silent.

“Shannon this is Zayne’s parents, Mayor and Mrs. Turner,” Kim says without missing a beat.

“Nice to meet you!” The all-American girl facade is firmly in place as she smiles and extends a hand, first to my mother and then my father. Both of them give her a limp handshake and nod in acknowledgement. Neither of them know what to say next.

“They were just hoping that you would stop dating their son,” Kim says.

Shannon draws her eyebrows together and looks up at them. Her act is so perfect its everything I can do not to laugh out loud.

“But, I’m not dating him. I said the same thing to those girls and they didn’t believe me either. It would be too weird dating Zayne. We just don’t have that kind of relationship. We’re more like…”

“Siblings,” I finish.

“Yeah,” she says, clapping me on the shoulder. “He’s like my brother.”

“I told them that, but I think they just needed to see it for themselves,” Kim says with a saccharine smile.

“Oh,” my mother says, looking like she is ready to crawl into a bottle and sleep this whole episode away.

“We’ll take our leave then,” says my father...our father, as he leads my mother out of the front door. I wink at Kim and give her a silent thumbs up before following behind.

The ride home is silent.

As I get out of the car in front of the house, my father hands me my phone back and disappears into his study for the evening. My mother runs a hot bath and pours herself a drink. Everything, it seems, is back to normal. But, nothing could be farther from the truth.

We may have won this battle, but nothing is permanent in war.

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