Isla Haraya: Maria (Published under IMMAC)

Chapter 5: Un-Family

Trigger warning: May contain sensitive topics such as death, sex, profanity, suicide, self-harm, drugs, alcohol, mental health, sexuality, etc. Please be guided accordingly and read at your own risk.

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It had been almost a year since I last saw everyone from Tatay's side of the family. Compared to Nanay's side of the family, Tatay's family could be quite...judgmental and they have unbelievably irrational high standards as if they fit the criteria perfectly.

And being around them was never my favorite thing in the world, but I knew that despite how much Tatay said that he no longer liked them or being in the presence of any of them, he still liked being surrounded by family. I could not blame him for that. He always said that he values family above all else, which I did see growing up.

But most of the people from his side of the family were never kind or nice to me ever since I was a child so I was not able to develop some kind of warm feeling for them.

"Wow, so Joshua already has his first child, huh?" One of my aunts, Tita Noemi, asked with an obviously fake smile plastered on her face. All I could focus on was the lipstick stain on one of her front teeth. "What about you? Have you ever thought of settling down?" she asked, tilting her head to the side—that annoying habit other people do when they act like they feel bad for you.

Putting on the most believable smile that I could muster, I tried to remain as polite as I could be despite how much I emphasized my stand about the matter before. "Not really. I am settling well into my job and I am more focused on becoming financially stable, as well as my career," I answered, managing to sound calm and collected—two things that I normally was not.

Tita Noemi scrunched her nose, obviously not agreeing with my answer. "You can't marry your job and you don't expect to work forever, right?" she asked, crossing her arms across her chest.

Pressing my lips into a straight line, I bit off the words that were begging to escape my lips. As much as I wanted to defend myself the way I wanted to, I needed to take a different route as my way of respecting my parents. "It's been a wonderful experience for me to be in an environment where I could see myself growing," I answered, my cheeks started to hurt a bit from that constant attempt of putting on a show. "But I am so proud of Kuya for being an amazing dad to Sean. He has been updating me a lot lately and I can see why he is so busy."

There was a faint hint of sarcasm laced in my voice and in my words but I was convinced that my aunt was not able to pick up on it because they have always been dense, which kind of helped in that situation. There was no way that I could manage the situation if my aunt ever reacted violently. But she simply nodded before looking at my other aunts and then excused herself.

Great. Who knew that my conversation skills still managed to drive people away?

Sitting at the isolated chair behind everyone, I watched them all mingle and interact. It almost felt like a dream and not in a good way. A part of me wanted to talk to them and maybe even bond with them but then how was I supposed to interact with people who never really cared about me or my parents...or even just my father? I witnessed them turn a blind eye whenever we were in trouble but if they ever have problems, they would pull us into the same mess.

So, I really did not see the use in pretending that I liked any of them when I disliked most of them. And what infuriated me more was how my parents were still interested in the whole charade.

My face was probably already morphed into a hybrid of a frown and a scowl from feeling bored, uninterested, and annoyed so it could be the reason why another one of my aunts decided to sit with me. And I could have welcomed her presence if it was not for the air of hypocrisy that surrounded her.