The Search for Serenity

11 - Role Models

- Toby -

The sound of cutlery clanging against the porcelain plates resonates through the chillingly still atmosphere of the house. Every now and then a small screech from the contact of a fork would echo through the air. The sweetly warm scent of steak settles stale in the room, giving any stranger on the outside the impression that the family sat around the table were a true family, peacefully enjoying a meal.

But looking closely at the fine details, this wasn't a peaceful silence. It was one where the air was so thick with tension that everyone was painfully aware of it as it weighed heavy in their chests with every inhale of every breath. The oxygen much too heavy with emotion that was sure to push away any appetite.

You'd see the mothers' deepening worry lines on her forehead as hid behind her smiling façade, the perfection she's so desperate to reach so far away from her. You'd see the father whose shirt isn't as creaseless as it was the morning he left for work and the right sleeve of it stained with a pink blotch of a lipstick in a shade his wife would never wear. You'd see the slight hiccups rising from the chest of the young daughter, whose teary eyes are rimmed a slight red. And you'd see the son who sits with his jaw clenched at he flickers his eyes around the table, on the verge of an explosion.

You'd see the family that is hardly even a family at all.

I flicker my gaze over to Delilah, her small cheeks reddened from her earlier upset. Her eyes are swollen from rubbing away at the tears that hadn't stopped falling until she had none left to cry, until they soaked the shoulder of my shirt as I held her against me, blocking out the sounds of continuous yelling that has now left the house in a sour and bitter tension.

Mom and dad had been fighting. Again. Dad had just gotten back from his trip and mom went off on dad because of the questionable scent of another woman's perfume on him when he embraced her as soon as he walked through the front door. And of course, as my parents do, with no consideration or maturity, they argued and yelled while Delilah was right there in front of them.

Dad had covered it up with a lie—that he was in a perfume store looking for something to surprise mom with.

This wasn't the first time mom had caught dad with that smell on him and yet she refuses to link the pieces together and do something about it.

Delilah's eyes remain downcast and facing her plate as she barely manages to chew through her potatoes. I fucking hate the way they're so blind to how they're making her feel, how they're affecting her, that they can't keep their problems at bay while she's around.

I clear my throat slightly to catch Delilah's attention and she looks up at me. Picking up two pieces of asparagus, I stick them in my mouth, mimicking the fangs of a vampire and let out a tiny growling noise and holding my hands up as claws in hopes it'll take her mind off of earlier events. Even if just for a moment.

She lets out a small giggle, a smile finally blooming on her face as she sits up straighter, sniffling. The shrilling sound of cutlery being dropped forcefully onto a plate echoes through the room, making Delilah jump in her seat and widen her eyes.

I close my eyes, preparing myself for whatever bullshit lecture I'm about to receive in the midst of mom and dad's remaining anger. There's a moments pause and then dad's voice snaps at me.

"Toby, have some damn manners at the table. Seriously? What kind of role model are you to your sister when you act like such a child?"

His words make me freeze in me seat and drop my food back onto my plate.

What kind of role model am I? He has to be joking.

"You're kidding, right?" I voice my thoughts, tone blunt as everything I've been feeling begins to boil over.