Neverland // l.p. au

Catastrophe

I waited anxiously as I watched my father's lips ease over the rim of the spoon that held the homemade ice cream that'd taken me all night to make. I read the recipe over and over again last night while preparing this delicacy, to ensure that the cream was only slightly sugared but allowed for the natural peppermint taste to take over for the most part.

It wasn't too minty...right? ½ cup mint leaves, ¼ cup cane sugar...my mind continued on endlessly down the list of ingredients while I continued to watch for my father's reaction.

He slowly lowered the now slightly empty spoon away from his pursed lips, adjusting his glasses without even a simple nod towards me. My breathing instantly became halted as I realized I'd messed up the simplest of a task, even though I had followed the recipe down to the last measurement.

Aidan's hand lightly squeezing my knee brought me back into the dinner conversation that seemed to last for hours, without me hardly uttering a word or two. It startled me for a moment and distracted me from my thoughts. I guess I had been analyzing my father's behavior this whole time.

I tore my eyes away from my father and looked over at Aidan, his eyebrows were furrowed as if to show he was engaged in whatever my mother was saying. I knew he'd much rather be out celebrating the victory he was able to score his team this past weekend. I wasn't much for the party scene, but I'd rather be anywhere but here.

Especially since it had become clear that my father didn't like the dinner I had spent all hours of the night preparing. I began to reflect on my choice of recipe as I noted that his lightly seasoned steak lay hardly touched on my mother's imported Italian plates, sat right beside the ice cream.

"Dinner was amazing. Thank you." Aidan cooed in my ear before lightly kissing the strained temple of my forehead. Though unfortunately nothing he did could stop the tears from coming now.

"I'll be right back, I'm just going to wash these and then use the restroom." I said barely able to bring audio to my now quieted voice. I was going to cry in front of all these sport agents any minute now I thought while hastily gathering up a few of the plates belonging to various guests of my parents, before making my way toward the kitchen.

These meetings always held a sore spot with me and every time I attended them with Aidan, the binding I'd used to close up the wounds of my parent's disapproval always managed to somehow unravel. I hated my father for tirelessly laboring to ensure Aidan's promising rugby career never went unappreciated. I hated Aidan for having to dream so big because it caused my father to ignore my dreams. Last of all, I hated my mother for encouraging them both like a cheerleader on the sidelines. Just shut up!

The plates slammed into the sink upon my entrance into the kitchen. Surprisingly I had made it without shedding a single tear. A task that was manageable not in the hopes of maintaining my pride (I didn't have much of that left), but because I had spent too much of my time on my make-up in preparing for tonight and therefore didn't want to ruin it.

It was a frivolous reason not to cry I suppose but...I didn't want my preparation of appearance to have been done for no reason. With all that foundation, bronzer, eye shadow, etc. Completed with winged eyeliner as symmetrical as my natural features allowed. Considering the fact that make-up couldn't exactly hide every imperfection on a woman- because imperfections were too damn stubborn. They held on tight to a person like memories and only faded once a woman chose to finally surrender to their inflexible nature, and distract them self with more meaningful things. But I wouldn't forget this night; this memory- and nothing could be used in an attempt to divert my attention from it. I was too embarrassed.

"Damn it." I mumbled as a tear slid down from my heavily painted eye, despite the somewhat inspirational pep talk I'd just given myself. My whole body became hot with the embarrassment of ruining dinner for tonight that it was hard to hold it in anymore. I'd spent so much of my time studying over the notes I'd taken during that cooking class just last week. Notes that guaranteed pulling off the perfect recipe, yet here I was crying in the damn kitchen.