Breaking From the Past

Chapter 5: Embarrassing Stories

"Stop it Connie!! That's not funny!!" My cheeks burn with embarrassment as Conrad continues with his trip down memory lane with my mom.

We are all sitting around the dinner table, I'm at the end of the left, mom on my right and Connie on my left, his mom is sitting next to him on his left. She stayed quiet almost the whole dinner, besides the occasional snicker from one of the stories being told.

"Oh and when she was 10, Zori and her friends wanted to go to the beach, so me and her friends' parents took them. Do you want to know what they did while they were there?" My mother looks at Conrad devilishly, he is sitting directly across from her. She raises an eyebrow waiting for his answer.

"Mom Please!!" I exclaim, hoping she won't continue with this horrible moment in my life. I cover my face with my clammy palms as she continues through with the story.

"Oh honey, there is no reason to stop. Look Connie is enjoying himself, see." She pointed to Conrad across the table, laughing at my efforts to stop the conversation. He is holding his stomach from laughing pains. Hisbwhole body is moving in waves as he laughs.

"Yeah, I want to know." He answers through his unnecessary laughter.

Mom continues, not phased by any of my complaints. "So they went to the beach together while us mom's kind of just hung out, sun bathing away from all the water and people. At that time in their lives they didn't know what skinny dipping was..." She trails off at the memory, but continues after she snaps back. "Anyway, they went into the ocean and felt that their clothes were too heavy, so they stripped down to nothing. Completely naked in the ocean. I looked up from my towel at one point to check on them and saw them walking up the beach with nothing on. At first I was angry because who takes off their clothes at the beach, but after the mom's and I scolded them about taking off their clothes we started laughing at them hysterically. After that, the embarrassment scarred Zori, now she will never go to the beach with me." Mom sighs when she finished talking.

My face still covered by my hands, on the verge of tears.

"Thanks mom, I really appreciate story time, but can we please finish so we can have dessert?" I clean up my plate and take it to the smooth aluminum sink to wash up. I fill it with water from the faucet, placing soap from the bottle located to the right of the sink. Connie came in after me with his dishes as well, setting them gently in the soapy water I had created.

"Did you guys really do that?" He asks skeptical.

I nod, too embarrassed to open my mouth. I continue washing up my dishes, splashing around in the soapy water and now Conrad's, I can feel my hands starting to prune up as I continue with the washing.

I feel his hand pull my head close to his chest, my head now leaning against him, I can feel his heart beating on my cheek, a smooth rhythm pumping in his chest. He wraps his arms around me, pulling me away from sink and my hands dripping the water onto the floor. "I'll tell you something that my mom doesn't know." He whispers into my head, I nod against his soft Hollister t shirt, wanting him to continue. "A couple months after we moved, my dad was at work and so was my mom so I was home alone. I was playing video games for hours, but eventually I became hungry. So I went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, picked up some meat to make a sandwich, but noticed a small picture under the ham. I took it into my hands and looked at it." He stops talking for a moment, pulling away from the embrace, placing only his hand around my waist now, trying to recall all the information before continuing again. "It was a picture of my mom and I at a tea party."

I look up at him with a look of bewilderment. "That's not embarrassing." I say. I pull away from Conrad so we are two separate bodies.

"Wait, I'm getting there." He lifts his right hand to my cheek, removing a stray strand of hair from my face. "It was an all girl's tea party. My mom wanted to go, but couldn't leave me alone in the house because I was still about 3 probably. Anyway, my mother dressed me as a girl with a wig and everything so she could go to the party, she kept the picture in the fridge to always remind her that I would never be the daughter she wanted." He paused, a sad look spread across his face before he smiles again. "I wanted to know about the picture so I asked my dad and that is what he told me. I never told my mom that I found it." He burst out laughing at his own embarrassing story. I turn around, facing back to the sink and Conrad's hand moves away from my body.

"Oh." That's all I can make come out. I look up at him from the sink where I had continued to finish up drying the dishes and notice he stopped laughing, a frown replacing his smile. "What's wrong?" I ask, looking back down to the sink again, soap splashing not my face, I wipe it with my forearm.

He removed himself from the conversation and started to walk away, "It's nothing Rina. I'm... I'm going to see if my mom is done eating and I'll bring her dishes in for you." He pulled the best smile he could, before walking slowly out of the room. I know something is wrong, I just don't know what.

I place the now clean dishes into the appropriate cupboard, when Conrad came back with some plates and silverware that he then placed in the soapy water. He didn't speak a word the whole time he is in the kitchen with me, it makes wonder what he is thinking. The only thing that really gives him away is his expression, it is a mix between pain and anger. It's like he was stabbed and the knife keeps turning in his heart, making his already deep wound, even deeper.

I shrug it off, wash the last of the dishes, place them in the cupboards and dry my hands with a towel that hung from the black oven handle. I get dessert out of the refrigerator and brought it out to the table with a knife and some paper plates. I had to make a second trip for the forks to eat the delicious looking chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. The cakes icing is smooth, a light brown color covering the entire top of the brown chocolate cake, crumbs falling from different places.

We sat, ate and nobody talked the rest of the night, besides my mom who is still spouting embarrassing stories from when I was younger.

I keep looking over to Conrad to see if he is still the same as when he left the kitchen. He is, his expression never changed, not once.

What is he thinking?

Why won't he tell me what's wrong?

Where is he right now?

All these thoughts coursed through me the rest of the night. I barely ate any cake, neither did Conrad. He and his mom ended up leaving shortly after eating the cake because he said he wasn't feeling well all of a sudden. So they left.

Hello!!

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