Stuck with a Punk ✔

No. 49.: Dealing with relatives

A lovey-dovey story wasn't exactly a part of my plan. Now, that so many people are glaring at us, Patty, Dad, Deidre, Daniel, my mother and a couple of others who just happen to stand close to us, I'm not feeling too comfortable. It's come to the point where I can't think of any possible story to tell them.

I look at Annabelle, expecting to exchange looks of cluelessness with her, but on the outside, she looks like she's just enjoying this picnic. "My sister and his friend introduced us one night and we met again for Memorial Day. Things just took off from there. He needed help with Devon while he was at work and I was more than happy to help."

My Dad smiles warmly, but there's something behind his smile that expresses doubt. Either he's onto something or he is not exactly fond of Annabelle. "That sounds very sweet. How long have you two-?"

He doesn't finish a sentence, and he doesn't have to. Everything about it smells like a trick, a trap. What if one of us says this has been going on for six weeks, and the other one says less than a month? We'd be caught, busted, and dragged across the teeth of the predators I call family members.

Annabelle looks at me, smiling and shrugging a little, "It's only been a few weeks. It's hard to say when it really happened because these things just... happen."

Dad nods knowingly and looks at Deidre next to him, "That's how it usually happens. Relationships that just happen have a certain charm to it."

We both nod at my Dad, wishing for a natural disaster to cause a distraction. I wouldn't mind if a tsunami washed us away to some distant shore.

"But tell me, Annabelle, what do you do for a living?" My mother smiles politely, eying her more than obviously. I begin to worry my mother now switched to sleeping with women as well. After so many men and all the dicks she had up her hoo-hah, it wouldn't be surprising. "You are in excellent shape."

Annabelle flushes in embarrassment. I guess it's not an everyday thing that a mother of some random dude you fucked eyes you like you're her prey. "I'm a ballet teacher for kids, actually. Up to eight years of age."

Deidre gasps at that, "That sounds like bliss! So you have all the little girls in frilly ballerina dresses dancing there?"

"Something along the lines, yes. It's not all just dancing, but that is the fun part of it all."

"And you like working with children? I, personally, was never any good with them. The only kids I got along with were Daniel and Nathan. May, not so much."

I snort at that, "No one got along with May. No one does."

Deidre shakes with her head, sighing in a depressive manner, which is a very rare thing to see. She has always been up-beat, the fun and entertaining Deidre. I think all three of us adored her in our own peculiar way. "Give your sister a break, darling. It's not easy what she's going through."

"She's going through something?" says Daniel who kept his mouth shut for most of this conversation, probably mentally imagining sleeping with Annabelle! Quite a dangerous thing to do right in front of Pats.

"Maybe she's peeling the onion of her mental disorders."

"Nathan!" I get elbowed by Annabelle again. I am starting to suspect she agreed to come here just so she could do this all day.

Deidre seems to be the only one in the group to know what's going on. My mother and Patty both perk their ears; I am interested as well, but not really that much. May is a grown up, she can handle her own stuff, and it's not like she'd ever considered confiding in me or ask me for a piece of advice.

"It's very likely she and Thomas are gonna get a divorce."

Most of them just silently gasp, are happy for it or, like Daniel, very disappointed, but then there's me, with my heart rate giving me a brain stroke from which I'd never be able to properly recover, "What?! How?! Why!"