For Her Undamaged (GirlxGirl)

31. Casual Interrogation

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Bailey's POV:

"And here is the winner of this evening, now we do have three course meals in our household unless we have business around in which we offer more of a light dinner but tonight was too special to just have it be casual." My mom sets a plate of roasted garlic lamb shanks with roasted mixed vegetables, and mash potato with some kind of gravy in front of me and Skylar whose sitting across from me while my dad is sitting at the head of the table and my mom on the other end. "This looks good ma'am." I watch Skylar poke at the large bone sticking out of the meat.

"My wife makes the best food, I'm telling you not even Gordon Ramsey can beat my wife's lamb shanks." My dad takes a bite of the food praising my mom, what is this act they're putting on? I don't like it because it's incredibly fake, I hope Skylar isn't taking the bait. "I've never tried anything by Gordon Ramsey." She takes her first bite and I watch her trying to figure out if her face can tell me what she thinks of it.

"My husband flatters me but tonight isn't about me, tell us about yourself Skylar maybe if your family does anything like this." Great and here comes the storm of personal questions so she can read if the person is genuine. I feel like I just tossed Skylar with the wolves without any warning or protection. Universe I know I said I wasn't going to ask anything of you again but please have my mom's throat on a leash for tonight.

"My family, uh it's only my older brother and my older cousin. We all live together and no we don't do anything like this, we have um non-structured lives unlike you all. There are rare times where we're all together at once and we don't blame each other for it because it's just how our life has been for years." She explains taking a sip from her wine. "That's a shame it sounds like work has gotten in the way of your family dynamic." Mom sounded apologetic. Fake. "Um I guess you can say that." I look up and we both eye contact.

"What do you do? Is it like a family business?" My dad genuinely sounds interested but he's treating this like my sophomore year when my date to homecoming had to go through the same thing, I didn't speak to him again after that, our contact broke when she looked at my dad, "We're apart of trading, just within the state nothing big." She tried to shut that part down the same way when she and Carmen were talking about their jobs.

I heard their conversation although it looked like I was busy choosing my books. "Trading huh?" "Yeah technology, you know computers, PC's, routers, mousepads." She adds and my dad chuckles while my mom just smiles. I can't tell if they're putting on this act anymore, it feels way too normal. Dinner continued and more talk about Skylar went on but it's not anything that I haven't heard before.

Is she still hiding something from me, she seems like a truthful person, a book that has a lock but you're still able to read a few sentences on the pages. Or maybe I'm just looking too much into it, this probably just is her life almost like mine. Little stories, few good memories, non-existent relationship with parents.

"Now that we're all done, how about we move on to the desert. I prepared a family favorite, cherries jubilee." My mom stands up and my dad rubs his hands together excitedly, "Daniel, please can you get the glasses up on the top shelf I can't." She asks him and Skylar and I look at each other again both waiting for my dad to leave. "Which cups, the wide ones?" "Daniel we only use one kind of cup for this desert." They start bickering and I feel my phone vibrate.

Skylar :)

Skylar :)
Is everything okay? You seem out of it