comfort {complete}

34

My mother is staring at us solemnly, her warm brown eyes passing over my face, then Katherine's, then Becca's; so on and so forth. Her hands are clasped in front of her, her legs crossed elegantly. Inhaling deeply and closing her eyes, she begins talking:

"My dears"—Katherine and I exchange a look, our eyebrows raised identically— "I have been asked out by Greg Mitchell— "

"Wait; my principal?" Katherine says, thinning her lips. "I thought you hated him because he didn't make me valedictorian?"

"Yes, well, we had a very heated discussion— "

"Ha. Discussion. Y'all made out, didn't you?" I say, rolling my eyes. "Mom, it's fine."

"We didn't make out, he kissed me. Once. Briefly."

"Uh-huh, I bet," Katherine says, winking at her. "Damn, Mom, I didn't think you had it in you."

Her eyebrows furrow and she leans forward. "You think I can't make out with the principal of my daughter's school?"

"Can I leave?" I ask, glancing longingly at the staircase. "I really don't wanna hear the details of your escapades, Mother, and— "

"Escapade," is her instant reply, "singular. It was one time."

"Yeah, whatever, I'm fine, can I go?"

She waves a shooing hand and dismisses the rest of us until she and Katherine are the only ones left. Katherine leans in and whispers something unintelligible before she leans back and gauges Mom's reaction.

Katherine has always seemed much closer to my mother than the rest of us, if only for being the oldest in the house. They relate to each other and they've confided in each other after what's happened to me; they were each other's shoulders to cry on, and I guess that creates a pretty strong bond. I didn't really have a shoulder to cry on, I don't think—I've been repressing a lot, and I know that it's not gonna end well when something triggers me, but I just really don't want to think about it.

So I'm not going to.

a/n: 319 words, which is a solid 200 more than i usually do. holla. also, this is 482 in short story so thank you very much to anyone reading it. (i know that's not very high up but i've never ranked so)