“Why am I being punished for Megan’s failed relationship?” Hailee whines, crossing her arms. “It’s not fair! Just because her middle school dating experience turned out bad, doesn’t mean that mine would!”
“You have enough to worry about without adding a boyfriend to the mix,” Mom replies, not missing a beat, “and if I had that realization when your sister was in middle school, then you can be sure she wouldn’t have had a boyfriend either.”
I would’ve honestly preferred that.
“Now,” Mom continues with a bit of a sigh, “is there anything else that you would like to add? Or can we move on to another topic?”
Hailee shrugs, but doesn’t offer more than that, and it’s obvious that Mom is about to lose her patience.
“How was your day, Mommy?” Kyle asks, cutting one of his carrots into a million little pieces. “Did you sell any insurgants?”
While his mispronunciation of “insurance” causes me to cringe, Mom just looks happy for a conversation change.
“Yeah, Ky-Ky, I did,” she tells him with a smile, “so today was a pretty good day.”
He gives her a simple nod as he proceeds to slaughter another one of his carrots. “Cool.”
“May I be excused?” Hailee asks in a dry voice, pushing her plate aside.
And there goes Mom’s smile.
“Sure,” Mom says, matching Hailee’s tone, “please take your dishes to the kitchen though.”
At that, Hailee doesn’t waste any time in standing up and gathering her stuff before leaving the dining room.
Kyle’s eyebrows crease as he turns his attention back to Mom. “Why is Hailee mad?”
“She’s not mad, sweetie,” Mom assures him, despite the sound of Hailee stomping upstairs. “Your sister is just a little upset.”
The sudden, and extremely loud, door-slam begs to differ. And the award for world’s moodiest preteen goes to…
“Well, she sounds mad,” Kyle observes, not looking convinced. “I think you might be wrong.”
Mom’s lips purse as she stands to her feet. “I’ll be right back…you two keep eating.”
“Why does Hailee want a boyfriend?” Kyle asks once Mom leaves the room.
“Peer pressure.”
“What’s that?”
I pop the last part of my dinner roll into my mouth. “You’ll see.”
“When?”
“Give it a couple more years.”
“Hey, Megan?”
I give him a lazy look. “Yes?”
He holds up a finger, then finishes chewing his food. “Are zebras white with black stripes, or are they black with white stripes?”
“Uhhhhh…I don’t know.”
Because in the scope of things, animal trivia isn’t very high on my list of priorities.
“But you’re in high school,” he drawls, pushing his mashed carrots around with his fork, “shouldn’t you know that already?”
“Stop judging me.”
He laughs, even though that wasn’t funny at all, then squints at his stupid carrots. “Who picked that carrots would be vegetables?”
Who cares?
“I don’t know, dude,” I tell him with some level of exasperation, “maybe a farmer or something.”
“Ah.” He nods like that makes perfect sense. “A carrot farmer.”
“Sure.”
Anything to make him stop.
“Hey, Megan?”
For the love of—
“What, Kyle?”
“Where do babies come from?”
“Okay,” I say, getting up from my seat, “question time is over.”
——————
My morning is fine. How could it not be with spilled milk, complaining, yelling, “bad” words, and the drama of where babies come from?
Let’s just say I’m actually excited to be going to school.
“Okay, everyone needs to finish up!” Mom exclaims, clapping her hands together. “Put the cereal away and grab your backpacks, now please!”
I don’t know why she’s saying “everyone,” I’ve been ready to go for almost ten minutes now.
“Kyle Jamison Taylor!” she hollers, following Kyle into his bedroom. “If I catch you with your finger in your nose one more time…”
Ya know, the bus isn’t looking so terrible right now.
“Mommmmmm!” Hailee whines, coming out of the kitchen with her eyes glued to her phone. “I’m gonna be lateeeeeee!”
Oh no, it’s the end of the world.
“You shouldn’t have taken an hour on your hair,” I tell her with a smirk.
She looks up from her phone to raise an eyebrow at me. “Well, you should’ve taken more than five minutes on yours.”
I can’t help feeling a little bit proud of her clapback.
Before I get the chance to say anything else to her though, she disappears into Kyle’s room. Probably to complain some more.
Just as I’m about to burn some brain cells by using my phone, Mom comes back into the living room with the two of them trailing behind her. “We’re leaving! Hailee, go ahead and take Kyle outside, I need to talk to your sister really quick.”
Oh no, that’s never good. Dang it, she must’ve found out that I ditched Brayden yesterday.
“Ooooooh,” Kyle cackles as he follows Hailee to the front door, “Megan’s in troubleeee!”
The little…
“So, what’s up, Mom?” I ask after they’re both outside. “Is something wrong?”
“I just wanted to see if you could do a favor for me,” she states in a matter-of-fact way, “it’s about Hailee.”
Yeah, I don’t think I like where this is going.
“Okay,” I drawl, my right leg starting to bounce with impatience, “so what kind of favor is it?”
“She’s really having a hard time with the no-dating-rule,” Mom says, letting out a sigh, “which you obviously know, but I was thinking that you could have a little one-on-one time with her? Maybe share a little bit about what happened in middle school with that boy? Bradley, right?”
I don’t hold it against her that she doesn’t remember the name of my middle school boyfriend, I’m actually glad she doesn’t remember. Can you imagine how awkward and horrifying that would be?
“That’s wrong, isn’t it?” she asks with a wince. “Sorry, honey, sometimes my mom brain gets the best of me. It started
