Five Years

3

The next morning I woke up with the rest of the family. Mom and Dad were going to start on some breakfast and right after breakfast work was going to begin.

"Delicious mom, thank you dad." I say as I put my plate and Lainies in the sink.

"It was very yummy." Lainie added.

"Thank you two." Mom thanked us.

Abby came in to the kitchen with a smile.

"We're off. Be back later!" Abby said and headed straight for the door.

"See ya." I yell.

"Bye." Lainie says quickly.

"Drive safe." Dad calls out.

"Love you hun." Mom yells just before the door shuts.

Mom and Lainie were doing some things in the kitchen while I was helping dad bring down a few boxes for tonight.

"You seem very happy, sweetheart." Dad comments.

Here we go, I knew it was going to happen. "Yes dad. I finally am."

"Im glad." He says as he handed me a brown cardboard box. "Any new guy?" He asks.

That surprised me a bit. "What!? Why do you think I have a new guy? No. No. No. I'm just finally over what happened." I answered.

"Really? It's a lot to get over. I remember you were trying the last time you were here but I would assume it would take longer." Dad said as he stepped down the last step on the ladder and bent down to grab a cardboard box for himself.

"Five years, dad. You expect me to take longer?" I asked, kinda surprised. Did people think that little of me?

"Maribella. He meant a lot to you. He was your best friend and to make matters worse you left Max. That was a drastic-" Dad tried.

"Drastic? You think I was wrong? You think that he affected me so much that I- I- dad he was my best friend. He's not now and I'm over it. Five years was way too long to take. Max and I had our own reason, how would James even fit in that? I'm fine, dad and I would love it if you wouldn't talk to me about either one of them." I was almost to the point of yelling at him. I was so angry and hurt.

I quickly took the box downstairs and set it down on the table.

"Are these going up now?" I asked mom. She nodded in response.

I opened the box and started putting a few of the decorations up.

"Are you okay hun?" Mom asked. She noticed the passive decoration placement.

"Yes mom, yes. I am fine. I am fine and I want to make that known to everyone." I said as my voice grew louder.

Everyone stayed quiet as we put up the decorations. They were on eggshells around me and I didn't necessarily want them to be, I just wanted them to stop talking about them. Those boys were old me's past and now if I can help it they will not be in the new me's future. I can stop people talking about them with me and so I did. When Abby's and Josh came home their smiles grew seeing the decorations up.

"It looks perfect!" Abby says happily.

"Thank you guys." Josh said.

"Happy to help dear." Mom said as she walked into the living room.

"Ooo what's that? Smells yummy." Leinie asked as she kept her eyes on the light blue square box Abby was carefully holding.

"Cake. It's for later so keep your grubby hands off. You to Mari." Abby said sternly.