Black Lotus

3 - Oasisism

May 28, 2016 | Saturday

It was memorial day weekend. This meant that today my family would be throwing a cookout. For some odd reason I can't explain, summer time was full of cookouts if you were in the Evans family. No matter what holiday or season it was, my parents always had a cookout. Especially on a Saturday afternoon.

As a child, I used to love these cookouts because it was a time to have fun with family and friends. It was all bonding and quality time until I got a little bit older. All the excitement turned into the bitter realization that a lot of people were there to judge and harass Ocean and I. Our relatives saw these get togethers as means to put their noses into our business. Thus, for the past few years Ocean and I have been planning out excuses on why we couldn't attend. But this time, Mom had finally discovered the pattern when she overheard us talking about it this morning. So she decided that the tradition of us two skipping cookouts was now over.

"What's wrong with the two of you spending time around the people who love you?" Dad questioned as he put his glasses on.

"They're so judgemental," I sighed, "all they do is ask us how we're doing, then criticize us about it. Last time I saw Aunt Bernadette, she was upset when I told her I didn't have a boyfriend and I was focused on school. Then, she started bothering Ocean when she heard that he was anti political. Also, Uncle Turner is always telling me that my skin is too dark and I need to stay out of the sun. That hurts."

"Okay, maybe some of our relatives are a bit obnoxious, but they care. Trust me." Mom wasn't hearing me.

"What about that time Cousin Lillian made fun of Oasis just because of her name?" Ocean argued.

"Family is family," Mom said. "They're your blood, Ocean."

"Blood doesn't make you family. Showing love an affection makes you family. Cain and Abel were bound by blood, but that didn't stop Cain from becoming a murderer."

My mother, sick of trying to make Ocean listen, gave up and walked away. Ocean had definitely developed Dad's lawyer skills over the years. The cookout didn't begin until 2:00 in the afternoon, and it was now 11:00 in the morning. So I went down to the hospital to get my navigator's journal back from Max.

When I arrived at the hospital, Max was asleep in the bed with my navigator's journal tightly in his arms. I sat on his bed and played with his hair. Eventually, he stretched his arms and unconsciously placed them around my waist whilst still asleep. At first I was going to get up, but then that'd wake Max up, so I stayed there and soon got what seemed to be almost too comfortable.

He woke up. "Hey, it's you. Oasis right?"

"Correct." I grinned.

"Why are you in my arms?"

"Because you put me in them."

"Wow," he snickered, "even in my sleep I'm slick. Oh, and I kept your journal warm for you." He handed it to me. "You have some amazing material in there."

"You read my journal!?"

His mouth dropped open. "Was I not supposed to?"

"No. Nobody has ever read this before."

"I'm sorry. If you want me to, I can act like I never read it. Or even knew it existed."