Broken Beyond Repair

thirteen

"Tristan, sweetheart?"

Groaning in frustration when Gen's cart hits mine and sends it sprawling I reply absentmindedly, "Yeah, Mom?"

"Can you come to the kitchen real quick?"

"Sure, just gimme a second."

With a cry of victory, Gen throws her arms up, tossing her controller by my feet, "I win, I win, I win! You owe me a large Slurpee. I'll take a half cola half cherry one, please and thank you!"

Scowling at the fact that I was about lose a portion of my allowance to buy the brat a cup full of iced sugar, I reach over and give one of her brown pigtails a sharp tug. "Whatever. Doesn't change the fact that you look like a monkey."

She screeches death threats my way as I scramble up from my seat and hand my controller to a laughing Isaac, making my hasty escape from Gen's wrath for ruining her precious hair.

Walking into the kitchen I watch as my mom chops a bunch of bell peppers for dinner. "Need any help, Mom?"

She turns to face me with a smile and the blue eyes that she passed on to me crinkle in the corners, the only feature on her face making it evident that she was aging at all. "I'm sorry for calling you away; I know you were busy playing with your cousins."

I shrug, not wanting her to feel bad, "It's okay, Gen was beating my ass—" I quickly cut myself off at the reproving look she gives me whenever I cuss, "— my butt. She was beating my butt in Mario Kart."

"I don't see how you kids are so obsessed with that game," she mutters amusedly to herself. "Anyways, your aunt and uncle are going to be coming here tomorrow morning to pick the two of them up so that they can go home."

Aw, man. I can feel myself deflate in dejection; things were so fucking boring when they weren't around. Plus, I hardly got to see them as it was since North Carolina wasn't exactly neighboring Illinois. The last time I'd seen them was when Mom and I went down to their place for the Mason family reunion they insisted we come to even though we weren't Masons. That was the day I'd met Gen's super pretty blond friend, who she called Junie.

Mom continues, "They'll be here for breakfast so can you drop by the Stop & Shop and just get the things I've written down here on this list. You know I'd ask Jack, but he went out for an emergency meeting for work."

I do my best to keep my face pleasant at the mention of my step dad while annoyance simmers inside of me as I realize that he's been being called for a lot of emergency meetings lately. What could possibly be so urgent about the oil industry he co-owned? 

Mom pretends like it's alright when he mentions them but I can tell she's upset over how he's hardly spending any time with her lately. He'd better pick up his act soon, or I won't hesitate to confront him even though we avoid each other as much as possible.