young lies

chapter ten - orange juice and plans

the next morning in the thompson household the two parents, along with molly and landon, are in the kitchen. the teens sit at the table scrolling on their phones as liz makes breakfast.

"hey, molly, can you pass the oj?" ed asks from his spot behind the island.

landon, unlike his sister, breaks away from his phone and looks up at the man before looking back to molly who continues in her device.

"molly?" he asks again.

sighing, landon reaches for the bottle mumbling a small, "i got it."

before he could bring it to his father ed stops him with a small shake of the head and an outstretched hand. "no, no. i want your sister to get it."

they both turn to look at the girl who poses for a selfie.

landon scoffs and looks back to his food. "good luck with that."

"try texting her. that's the only mode of communication she recognizes." liz suggests filling an empty plate with eggs.

listening to his wife's suggestion ed begins to type on his phone. molly's phone beeps and the trio watches as she rolls her eyes and slides away from the notification.

landon stifles his laughter from beside her and shoves a fork full of fruit in his mouth to cover up the noise. on the other side of the room, his dads jaw drops as he silently gasps.

"did you see that?" he whispers urgently to his wife. liz meets the eyes of her son with a tight lipped smile that he reciprocates. "she swiped me!" ed continues. "i can't believe she just swiped me! what if i was choking?"

"why would you text her if you were choking?" liz asks with a scoff.

"because i wouldn't be able to talk." ed explains.

"okay, that actually makes sense."

"this is getting worse." ed says looking back to molly. "she used to respond to my texts, even my homemade memes." landon rolls his eyes at the mention of ed's memes as ed continues talking. "this is starting to become a problem."

liz shrugs. "so let if become a problem. if she doesn't respond to a text about some family activity, for example..."

"thompson family poker night?" ed says jokingly but then soon smiles and nods. "we should really do that."

"no." landon says from his place at the table. "we should not."

rolling her eyes at the boys, liz speaks. "yeah, we'll see. my point is, she misses a text, she misses thompson family poker night, or some other activity she might actually enjoy. it's all about consequences. it's our job to teach them to make mistakes. it's how they learn."

"i'm not gonna say you're wrong, but your not right." a smug ed says causing liz to turn around from her place in front of the fridge and scoff at him. "it's our job to teach them to not make mistakes in the first place. you know? stop the problem before it happens. that says there's less yelling and hurt feelings, and more kids doing what we want them to do."

"fine, so go confront her."

"or... better yet, i'll find an app that'll do it for me." ed sighs and leans down on the table and taking out his phone to search for an app.

just then, the eldest thompson child, jeremy, storms in from the living room.

"i finally got 'em!"

liz frowns and walks towards her son. "sweetie, who did you get, and did they want to get got?"

landon rolls his eyes. "it's amusing you think jeremy could pull anyone, mom."

jeremy rolls his eyes at the two of them before going farther into detail. "i called social services, and guess what? that woman dorothy isn't in the database. so if she's not bex's and nick's social worker, than who is she?"