Calore Dance Academy// Red Queen AU

Chapter 3

"Supper!" Mom hollers from the kitchen while I'm in the middle of my fouettés, turns I've realized, that if I time them right, I won't kick my foot into anything.

But Mom's yell startles me, and with a kick,  I end up face-planting onto my sister's bed.

A moment later, I'm shoving my shoes into my box, shoving the box under my bed.

I leave my room, glancing out the shuttered window to see the low sun in between the cracks. Time got away from me today; I probably spent two hours going over ballet.

I needed it. Between Kilorn and Farley, I needed to decompress through something, and there's nothing like dancing in my tiny bedroom to help me unwind.

It's no use thinking about it now anyway. Kilorn has to have time to cool off before I try calling him or knocking on his door. I doubt he's even home. The Scarlet Street Fighters cannot be found. Unless Kilorn already has an in with them, it's going to take him a little bit of effort to track that gang down.

Good. Make him work for it if he's so intent on destroying his life.

But I force the last few hours out of my mind as I enter our sparsely furnished living room and move across to reach the table tucked into the back.

The rest of my family already sits in the old wooden chairs enveloping the old wooden table, Dad at the head. Mom's distributed soup around the table, and Gisa's set out glasses for water and milk. I settle down across from my sister and next to Bree.

Seven o'clock on the dot every night, Mom, Dad, Bree, Tramy, Gisa, and I gather around the dinner table. We stay here for a half an hour, give or take, and though there are six of us, conversations are filled with small talk and otherwise painful lapses of silence. Gisa talks more than anyone else, telling us about her sewing and school. Mom will tell the occasional story, and Dad will share something he read in the paper. Bree and Tramy have nothing interesting going on in their lives, and I . . . well nobody wants to hear about what I stole on any given day.

I throw my money on the table every night, and somebody or other picks it off to be stuffed away. That's that.

In the Barrow household, anything goes at dinnertime. Slurping the remnants of our soup bowls, using the wrong sized fork . . . that's our thing. The shabby placemats over the table are stained thanks to my brothers, though it wasn't long ago that Mom washed them. Bree and Tramy have a burping contest once a week. I can't remember the last time we said grace.

Something bland, I think as I behold the soup bowl before me. Something with too many vegetables.

"Minestrone soup," Mom says, noticing how I stare at my food.

Though the comment isn't for him, Dad mutters his thanks before picking up his spoon to dig in.

Bree and Tramy happen to both be unemployed at the moment, but they have no problem eating as much of Mom's food as they're offered. My brothers are just as fast to begin eating, following Dad after a moment's pause. They'll go back for seconds before I'm halfway through my bowl. I roll my eyes incredulously as I watch them devour their bowls. Boys. Geez.

Only when Mom picks up her spoon at her place on the opposite head of the table, closest to me and Gisa, do I let myself eat, lifting my foggy and slightly bent spoon to my lips.

Yes, yes, too many vegetables, paired with a portion of pasta and a broth. And as much as I'd like to complain just once, I don't. Not when the food my mother cooks is better than I could ever do.

Gisa and Mom haven't let me in the kitchen for years after realizing that I'm hopeless when it comes to the culinary arts of life.

Any fragments of conversation my family members offer up dissolve into awkward silence unnervingly quickly. We all say our piece, respond with a "good" when Bree asks us how each of our days were. Though nobody really means it. Mom got home from her shift at the hotel a couple of hours ago. My brothers and father didn't do much of anything, as is the usual.