Page 233 of Steeling Her
“Fine; boring, but fine.” She rests her head on her hand and pierces her food with her fork.
“She has a crush on a boy—” my mom interjects, causing Ellie to moan back to stop her from talking.
“MOM!” she yells, making me choke on my food.
“Wait, what? A guy?” I look to my mom for confirmation because I know my little sister is way too embarrassed about this. “Are you serious?” I ask my mom and she nods. I crane my neck to face my beetroot-red sister slouching on the chair in front of me, trying to get out of this situation “Is she serious?” I question her.
“No . . .” she peeps, but I can tell by her trying to hide that it’s true.
“You’re not allowed to like a guy! Or girl, how old are you? Like, ten?” I wave my hands hysterically, not happy about this.
“Yeah . . .” She shrinks even more.
“Go easy on her, Nick, it’s her first crush—”
“MOM, stop it! I don’t like him!” she whines to our mom in front of me.
“Okay, okay, okay! I’m sorry . . . She doesn’t like him.” My mom looks over the bridge of her glasses, exaggerating the lie. Ellie huffs in her seat.
“Stop looking at him like that, Mom!” She points at me, getting even more annoyed, which only tells me one thing; she does like this mysterious guy.
“You’re ten, you can’t like someone at ten. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even like girls when I was that—”
“Amanda Simmons,” my mom interjects, effectively shutting me up.
Touché, Mother, touché.
“Mom, not helping my point here.” I put down my knife and fork to turn around and face her giggling away to herself for getting a point.
“Double standards,” Ellie mutters under her breath, causing me to face her again.
“And what do you know about double standards? Huh?”I stick out my tongue and she starts to giggle across the table.
“Now who’s the ten-year-old?” She tilts her head to the side in a condescending manner.
“At least I don’t have a crush.” I copy her tone.
“At least I’m not in looove—”
“Ellie!” my mom scolds her about the sore topic, killing the vibe in one simple sentence. The complex topic of love and what happened to me once I found it.
“Sorry . . .” she apologizes timidly and sits herself up so she’s sitting straight. The room goes so silent, you could almost hear a pin drop.
“It’s alright.” I forgive her for the slip up.
I finish my dinner soon after that and we continue the light conversation at the table. But when the time for dessert came, my mom reminds me of the one rule about it.
Nobody fights over dessert.
We took it in two ways; we don’t fight about dessert and we don’t fight while having dessert.
As she cuts a slice for me after serving her and Ellie some first, I reach for another plate for her to cut another. As she does, thinking it was another one for me, I stand up and take both plates into my hand. “I’ll be right back,” I say to the both of them, letting them know that I needed some time alone with my father.
He’s been hiding from me since I got here, and I think it’s about time that we finally spoke about the elephant in the room. I look out towards the garden to see if I can find any movement in the dusk of the night, but I don’t see or hear anything.
“Try the garage,” my mom suggests. I saunter towards the door to the garage where I can hear the clanging of the tools he’s using to fix up an old car that he’s been working on for years.Five years, he’s been working on this for five years.
As I kick open the garage door, he doesn’t even look up. He continues to work on the old red Chevy he bought in a junkyard sale. The potent smell of oil and grease coats my nose but I adjust to it quickly. “I said I’ll be in later for dessert, Lynn,” he says in a grouchy tone, thinking it’s my mom.
