Expectations || Completed but unedited

{10}

Limerence
the state of being infatuated with another person

"You've got to be kidding me." I crossed my arms over my chest and fought the urge to roll my eyes as Maggie walked through the front door of my workplace.

"Sophia, I want to apologize about yesterday." She was wringing her hands together while avoiding looking at me.

The policy says I'm not allowed to be rude or cruel to a customer unless they've been rude or harsh first. So I have to stand here with a smile on my face and listen to her talk. Fuck my life.

"The best apology would be to leave and never come back or contact any of us again." I finish the sentence with my best smile.

"I'm your mother, Sophia." She reached out to lay her hands on my hands, but I pulled mine back. "I'm a member of your family. More than Derek and Willow Jacobs."

I stared at her waiting for someone to jump out and say, "Gotcha!" but no. She was absolutely serious about this. Ten years of being out of our lives, she wants back in because Dad is marrying a man.

"No," I told her. "Homophobic people are not a part of my family."

"I'm your moth-" She started again, but I cut off.

"I have two dads, Owen Quincey and Derek Jacobs, and two sisters, Ariel Quincey and Willow Jacobs." I looked her in the eye as I listed off those who made up of my family. "I have a surrogate mother, Michelle Howard, an honoree aunt and uncle, Nancy and Clarke Smith, and two honoree siblings, Aurora Smith and Cameron Howard."

"Th-"

"I am not finished," I told her, and she shut up. "Gabriel Howard, my oldest friend, who isn't a sister, is a part of my family. Doctor Zoey Henry, my therapist, is a part of my family. You, Maggie Xavier, are not a part of my family. Why? For one, you're homophobic and racist. Two, you abandoned me in the middle of the night at Target when I was eight years old. A pedophile or serial killer could've taken me."

She looked down at the counter, and a look of guilt and shame passed over her face, but that doesn't stop me from talking. It makes me angrier.

"My father and older sister were destroyed by that." It was taking every ounce of willpower not to smack her and cuss her out. If we weren't at my workplace. "I had nightmares for years; I couldn't go back into Target until last year. I had trouble making new friends because I was terrified they were going to leave as you did. The same thing with romantic relationships, whatever Gabe and I have is the first relationship in the romantic and sexual sense that I have had."

I took a deep breath to calm myself a little and continued. "You don't get to abandon us all without a warning or explanation, then waltz back in nearly over a decade later and say you're a part of this family. Papa didn't turn Dad gay. Dad is bi and has been his whole life, but didn't understand that until he did some research for work to be aware of who could be in his class. I thought Papa and Willow were leaving when I saw him crying, but that wasn't why. He was crying because he finally understood a part of who he is."

"Do as my father told you. Get out and don't come back." I told her and pointed at the door. "Now."

She didn't look at me as she left the store and, hopefully, our lives.

"So, Gabe isn't an honoree sibling?" Aurora asked, walking down the stores with a couple of books.

"No, that would be weird." I tucked aa some stray hairs behind my ear.

"Because you like him, romantically?" She raised her eyebrows and set the books on the counter.

"Yeah." I sighed; my heart feeling lighter when I said the truth.