Sign On The Dotted Line

Chapter 16

[A/N]: anything in italics is meant to be said in Spanish lol I didn't want to butcher the language lol

Claire

"Claire, there's something I have to tell you about my family," Beth said beside me. I turned to look at her when I heard the nervousness in her voice. Before she could continue, the door opened and a teenage girl stood in the doorway.

She looked up from her phone, "Hey," she said to Beth.

Beth frowned as she took the phone from her, "' hey'" she mimicked in an annoying voice, "that's all you're going to say to your sister that drove, I don't know how many hours to spend my birthday with you and mom?"

The girl smiled as she went to hug Beth, "you didn't let me finish. I meant to say 'hey you're here happy birthday'" I looked from Beth to her sister and couldn't help but notice how different they look. While Beth had straight blonde hair and blue eyes, her sister had dark wavy hair and brown eyes.

Beth took my hand, "Charlie, this is my girlfriend Claire." Charlie pulled away from Beth and looked at me in awe.

"It's such an honor to meet you," she shook my hand with enthusiasm, "I honestly can't believe my sister managed to trick you into dating her."

Beth held the back of Charlie's neck, "this punk," she scolded as I laughed. I clung onto Beth's arm, "it's nice to meet you Charlie and all the tricking was done on my part," I looked into Beth's eyes, "I'm just waiting for her to tell me when she's sick of me."

Beth smiled at me while Charlie looked on, "alright, this is too lovey-dovey for me." She grabbed her phone out of Beth's hand and ran inside, leaving the door open for us.

Beth rolled her eyes, "sorry about that, I forgot she's going through her teen phase."

I put my hands up in defense, "I remember being in that phase and I don't miss it."

Beth laughed, "so tell me exactly how teenage Claire was." She led me inside the house closed the door behind us. Beth walked past me in a hurry, "actually hold that thought, I've been holding in my pee for an hour, I'll be right back."

I shook my head with a smile and only realized that the walls were decorated with baby pictures of Beth and Charlie. I stopped to study every photo and smiled as every picture illustrated Beth growing up with her sister.

"Hi there, you must be Claire."

I turned in the direction of the voice and was met with a small Spanish woman smiling at me, "it's so nice to finally meet you," she walked closer to me with her hand out, "I'm Marcella, Beth's mom."

I shook her hand and hoped that I hid the shock, "it's so nice to meet you, Beth speaks very highly of you. Oh right," I handed her the box of cake, "Beth and I stopped to grab a cake.''

"Perfect!" she replied with a slight accent, "we can have it for dessert tonight," she grinned.

You didn't have to see Marcella up close to know that she was Charlie's mother. They both had the same kind brown eyes, mocha skin, and although Marcella's hair was starting to gray, I imagined her hair was exactly like Charlie's. Why was it that Beth was the only blonde in the family?

Beth

I flushed the toilet and went to the sink to wash my hands. I looked in the mirror and stared at my reflection, the girl staring back at me looked the same but different from when I looked into this mirror in high school. I lost all my baby fat in my face and I grew into my ears, thank God.

I continued staring at the mirror and wondered if I could lie to mom and Charlie, "you can do this, Beth." I nodded and turned to leave.

Walking down the hall back to the front door where hopefully Claire was still waiting. I turned the corner and saw Claire shaking mom's hand and tensed, I totally forgot to tell her about my family.