Maybe Then...

Chapter 7: if I were talented enough

If I were talented enough

Maybe then, I wouldn't have been their last resort.

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It had been nearly a week since I first got hired, and I felt like I was getting the hang of things. Rob kept his word and let me run the register by myself the next day, and I only had difficulties with it a few times.

It took a few days to convince grandpa to let me miss out on family dinners, but he ended up meeting me in the middle with a compromise. I was only allowed to work that late every other day. I took the offer with gratitude, knowing I probably wouldn't get much better an offer. But hey, beggars can't be choosers.

"Why don't you let her do it every weekday but Friday?" aunt Ruby suggested. "That way it will be one specific day that we have it?"

"Will all due respect, Ruby, she is my granddaughter, and Bethany did give me custody of her."

I hated when this happened. I hated being talked about like an object. I hated it when people would talk about me being given to my grandparents, like I was an object. It almost never happened on grandpa's behalf, yet it did that morning, over the discussion of my work shifts, of all things.

I'm a human. Not an object. I'm not just some responsibility forced upon someone else. But that didn't change the fact that they still argued passively over breakfast, ignoring the fact that the person they were discussing was at the table. I bit my tongue, knowing all too well that my own input about myself wouldn't change very much.

I glared over at Daniel who sat on the other side of the table. He was keeping his eyes on his plate, but gave an uneasy glance towards me. For a split second, I saw sympathy in his eyes. I soon lost my appetite, only finishing half of my food.

"Where are you going?" aunt Ruby asked as I scooted out of my chair.

"I'm not that hungry," I forced a smile and shrugged.

I didn't wait for what she had to say next, and hurried up the stairs. I hadn't even reached the top of it when I heard grandpa grumbling at her. "Oh, great, now you upset her!"

"Dad, Ruby had just made an alternative suggestion," Uncle Jason said sternly.

"You were the one who made that stupid comment!" aunt Ruby fired back.

"Well you keep trying to parent the poor girl, and-" I tuned out whatever he was about to say, and quickly shut my door, locking it behind me. I slid against it until I was sitting, and simply stared at the ceiling. I didn't cry, I didn't mumble profanities, I didn't express any frustration or disappointment, I just stared at the white paint, breathing deeply. I get out of the house regularly, and this is what I get? Fights about how to raise me properly? It was a freaking job!

But after reflecting on it, I'd realized the three adults in the house had been getting more and more impatient with one another. We'd only been here a few weeks, but they still somehow managed to find several things to argue about, and didn't hold back from arguing about them.

A knock on my door snapped me out of my thoughts.

"Amelia?"

It wasn't grandpa, or aunt Ruby, it wasn't even uncle Jason. It was Daniel.

"What?" I groaned.

"So, umm...." he trailed off. I sighed as I propped myself up from my comfortable position on the floor, and opened the door to face him.

As soon as the door swung open, he averted his eyes to his fingers and began picking at them. "So the guys haven't found a bassist for the band yet, and we wanted to have it completed before the summer even started..."

"Get to the point, Dan."

"Well, we can't find anybody else, so they thought...maybe you could join?"

I just blinked at him, dumbfounded.

"I mean, we just need somebody to fill in until we get a permanent member, and they all thought you were the best candidate for the job," he mumbled.

"So I'm your last resort, basically?"

"Well, yeah," he agreed, but quickly added, "but if you ask the guys, they'd probably say something more like 'a lifesaver' than a 'last resort.'"

I furrowed my eyebrows and thought for a moment. Do I really want to be last pick? Well, in all fairness, I had only lived here a few weeks, and the others hadn't even known me for that long, so how could they have even considered me until recently?

I look Daniel in the eye, bracing myself for the risk I was taking. "Okay."

He seemed slightly shocked by my answer, as though he wasn't sure what response he was expecting.

He opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off before any words could escape past his lips.

"But," I held up a finger, "only if it won't interfere with my work schedule."

"Alright, but please please please do not schedule your hours when we have practice on purpose."

"What kind of a monster do you think I am?" I said feigning offense. "Speaking of which, I have work to get ready for."

I waved him away and shut my door once again, though this time I did so feeling like I had a say in some matter.