Apartment 311

Ch | 3

Brooklyn Noelle Brankovich

Chapter Three: "That's what I call a family vacation"

I didn't talk to my parents all morning. It was too early anyway and they had way too much energy.

"Can you at least pretend to be happy? This is a family vacation and you're apart of that family," Mother scolded me, "not a lot of people have the privilege of going on these vacations, Lynn."

"Well, why don't you adopt one of them? I'm sure they'd be honored and privileged, then. Excuse me-"

Before I could rush past her, she grabbed my arm and squeezed. She lowered the volume of her voice to make a threat. "You're going to enjoy yourself on this cruise, Brooklyn. Not for me, but for your father. He needs this."

I inhaled deeply and clenched my jaw. Finally, I mustered up the courage to take my arm back and walk ahead of my uppity parents.

"What's gotten into her?" I heard Dad ask.

"It's the breakup," Mom lied to him.

Dad went "oh" and felt bad. "Lynn, there's other guys out there. You're an adult now, I'm sure you'll find someone on this cruise even," he told me, thinking that would cheer me up.

I looked at Mom to make a point, recalling the fact that I said that last night. She cut her brown eyes from me and grumbled angrily.

"I'm not trying to fall in love and I don't need y'all to play matchmaker," I snapped.

"Y'all? Oh my," Mother gasped at my Southern slang. She acts like she's too good to not always use proper English when it's not even her first language.

Dad told her to cut me some slack just before the captain approached us.

"Mr and Mrs.Brankovich, what a pleasure," he kissed up to my parents.

My mother shook his hand firmly. "The pleasure is ours, Captain."

"Nice ship, I'm sure we'll be making this our annual vacation from now on. I'm relaxed, already," Dad made conversation. He pulled me in and grinned in the man's face.

I wasn't too fond of that idea but I kept my mouth shut and turned up the music that played through my AirPod pros.

Mother let Captain Honer in on the fact that she had some expensive items she'd hate to have misplaced. So, the captain offered to put them in a safe.

"The code is 3448," he told us all in confidence. Just as he said it, two guys bumped into me.

"Oh, shit, sorry," the one with dark hair said to me.

I looked up at him with an angry face but it quickly turned into a smile when he wet his lips and apologized again before walking off with his blonde friend.

"Neanderthals," my mother spat, "you don't think they heard, do you, Michael?"

"I'm not sure, Dana, but it'll be fine. Come on, let's go find our rooms. Captain," Dad said.

My father was raised in America, but of two German parents. His mother a teacher and his father was a pediatrician.

There was a hold up on the main deck or whatever you call it. We had to stand in a line.

In front of me, there was a girl. She looked impatient with all her bags.

All of a sudden, the girl's bag ripped and her things spilled about. She seemed pissed, which is understandable, and scattered to gather her belongings.