Salted Wound

Chapter 15 Zamari- Sep 9, 2018

From my room the bang of the front door opening and mom calling for help with the groceries is as loud as if I had been in the living room, causing me to groan in annoyance. I drag myself out of bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and stumble into my slides, squinting against the overbearing sunlight in the hall. As I walk into the living room, mom does a double-take, and laughs.

    "Morning sleeping beauty. You do know the world functions before noon?"

    I mumble good morning and go out to the car to gather the groceries, looking forward to collapsing back in bed as soon as the food is in the house. In the kitchen, Jade is sorting the food into the pantry and fridge while mom and I set more bags on the counter. I glance around, noticing the lack of a wiry, chattery little boy that usually used this time to complain about the vegetable to sugar ratio.

    "Where's Mari at?" I ask.

    "He went out a bit ago with dad and Jenny," mom says. I make a face, and Jade rolls her eyes at me. Mom looks up at me from the groceries, causing me and my twin to school our faces so she wouldn't ask too many questions.

    "Speaking of your dad, how did dinner go on Tuesday? I completely forgot to ask."

    So much for avoiding questions. Jade gives me a look over her shoulder, and I resist the urge to make one back, barely keeping myself from reverting to the mentality of a five-year-old.

    "It was alright. Nothing special." I reply, racking my brain for a way to change the subject.

    "I told you it would be worth it if you just try to get along with them." She replies, and I lock eyes with Jade once again, this time recognizing pity in her eyes. There's little I can keep from her, and she was the first one I told about the dinner from hell I had endured Tuesday.

    "Sure mom," I say.

    She pauses to look at me a moment, but she doesn't push the issue and blessedly changes the subject just as Jade heads out of the kitchen and down the hall.

    "Where did you take Amari last night? He wouldn't stop talking about his new friend this morning."

    I blow out a relieved breath before responding. "At Benny's, we saw a friend of mine working, she went to the park with us and invited us to dinner at her house. She has a little brother named Julian that's Amari's age, they got along really well."

    Mom raises her eyebrow at me as she pulls grapes out of a bag and makes to put them in the fridge. "A 'friend' inviting you for dinner with her family?"

    I roll my eyes in response, hauling myself onto the counter and intercepting the grapes to pull a handful off the vine. "Yes, mom, a friend. She's the one tutoring me. Amari wanted to go to the park and we both thought it'd be good for both our brothers to meet." Ignoring the fact that I wanted an excuse to hang out with her outside of school.

    "Well, whoever it is, they were a good influence on Amari, he wants to play with Julian again soon." She says as Jade comes back into the kitchen, and hops onto the counter opposite me.

    "Who's Julian?" She asks.

    I aim a grape at her and she catches it in her mouth as I respond

    "Ana's little brother."

    Jade raises her eyebrow in a mirror image of mom not five minutes before.

    "Luis' girlfriend Ana? How'd Mari end up meeting her brother?"

    "If you'd been in the conversation maybe you'd know," I say, causing Jade to throw a nearby dishtowel at me. I recount what I had just told mom.

She gives me a mildly concerned look, and I know she's remembering my fight with Luis. I mouth talk later to her and she nods. This is a subject not to be discussed around mom.

Once the groceries are put away, mom chases us off the counters and out of the kitchen. I go back in my room and collapse on my already sleep skewed bed, while Jade follows and perches in my office chair, her sweatpants-clad legs draped over the arm, short clipped hair perfectly in place as always, while my longer curls sprang in every direction from my head, fuzzy and uncontrolled.

"So...Ana," Jade says, twisting idly in the chair.

I bury my face in my pillow as I say sarcastically, "You should really be a conversationalist, you're great at it."

She must have understood me, even as muffled as I was, talking through a pillow because I feel something soft hit the back of my head.

"You gonna let me in on whatever is going on between you and little miss perfect?" She asks. I bristle at the way she regards Ana but pretends not to, turning my head to look at her slightly.

"You know as well as I do, she's dating Luis, and that she's been tutoring me. We're cool, and her brother gets along with Amari, it's no deeper than that."

"And you're not planning on screwing with Luis, shoving it in his face that you're buddy buddy with his girl?" She asks.

I wobble my head back and forth in an eh gesture.

"I won't say that isn't a perk." I grin wickedly.

My sister rolls her eyes, trying not to grin.

"While I know you have a death wish, I'm not so sure it's smart to poke the metaphorical bear. Just be careful how close you're getting to Ana. If Luis hears you went over to have dinner with her family he'll lose his shit. And I'm not up to scraping you off the pavement again so soon."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, love you too," I reply, and she rolls her eyes, even while a grin creeps onto her face.