" I screamed."
"Yes."
Dalila didn't understand why Sarah didn't know she screamed. If she screamed she would know. Hopefully. Sarah's expression was hard to identify. She wasn't exactly shocked. It seemed as if this had happened before, but she still looked confused. Like it wasn't exactly the same.
Sarah kept glancing at Elana through the rest of the dinner. Dalila was eager to leave. The younger girl, Maria looked exasperated. Almost as if she had caused it. But Dalila knew her better than the other kids. Believe it or not, they were both in marching band. Maria played the french horn or maybe the saxophone, Dalila didn't pay attention to the other instruments, unless they messed up. Dalila played trumpet. There was no way Maria could have caused Sarah horror. Maria was sweet not scary, but she didn't always know everything. She confused people, but mostly she confused herself.
As soon as the bill was paid Dalila left, leaving her boyfriend. Marcus was a nice guy. Dalila liked him. But he was as dumb as a bag of rocks, and had cheated o her more times than she could count. But he was charming. They weren't even dating anymore. They broke up freshman year, after a week. he was a crappy boyfriend, but he was a pretty good friend.
Dalila opened the door to her apartment.
"I'm home!" she yelled.
"Hi, sweetie!" her dad yelled back.
Dalila didn't know her real parents, only her adoptive ones. Dalila never had a mom. She didn't necessarily need one, nor did she pray at night for one. It was just a little complicated when girl things happened.
She went to her room. She shared it with her sister, Laurie, and her brother, Julian. Julian was somewhere with his friends, most likely the ice hockey game. Although their team sucked. Laurie was sprawled on her bed reading.
"Whatcha reading, nerd?" she asked.
"It's a biography." Laurie said not looking up.
"A bibliography on who?"
" A bibliography?"
"I mean biography!"
"No, it's a bibliography."
"Whatever. Who's it on?"
"James Madison."
"Lame, read the one on Alexander Hamilton, they have a musical about it."
Laurie was two months younger than Dalila. Julian was ten months older than Dalila, Laurie and Julian were one year and one day apart.
"Girls! I'm home!"
The girls emerged from their room.
"Hi, daddy!" Laurie said. She thought that being younger meant she could be the little one. No. She can't.
"Hi dad."
"Is dad two home?"
"I'm dad one!" yelled her other father.
"Keep telling yourself that!" he yelled back, winking at the girls.
They laughed as Julian came in.
"Yo." he said. Julian tried to be cool, but he was in chess club and had like two friends.
"Dude, no one says 'yo'."
"Yo." someone yelled from the hallway.
"Ten bucks that was George McKinery."
"Yeah, right it was so Paula Sherman!"
They glaredd at each other and laughed. Dalila's life was pretty ordinary.
Except she was adopted, her parents were gay, and the only blood family, her aunt, was in prison for manslaughter. Yeah, ordinary.
