What is family?

Chapter 18

Vince

I was eating the pancakes calmly, while the guys were teasing Lina. She was huffing and glaring at them, while they were teasing her about how bad her cooking skills are.

I admit that Lina is a bad cook. The food she cooks is not at all edible. She either forgets to add some ingredients or adds one instead of another. Same with the pancakes I'm eating right now. She definitely added a different flour than the one that is required to be added.

But, yet I'm eating it. Not because it is tasty, but because I know why she had put an effort in making breakfast today.

She is trying to pacify me!

Angelina's reaction to the news of her not being our biological sister didn't sit well with me. I didn't like the way she said she has to stay with her biological relatives. I was angry and upset. I left the matter there, thinking, she acted out on impulse. But the next morning, when she tried to push Arianna towards us, by distancing herself, my anger reached its peaks.

I have been giving her a cold shoulder since that incident. She has to understand that what she is doing is not correct. She doesn't have to distance herself from us, just because she is not related by blood.

I admit I had been teaching them that family comes above all, but she has to realize that she is our family despite the fact that she is not related to us by blood.

She may not be our biological sister, but she is our baby sister. My baby sister. The sister I raised for fourteen years. No matter she has some biological relatives and no matter if she still has her biological parents alive, she is still our sister. We are her family. We have a greater right on her than any of her biological relatives.

I just want her to realize and understand that. I also want her to know how upset and angry she has made me by trying to move away from us. That is the reason, I've been giving her a cold shoulder.

Unlike before, she didn't come to me as soon as she knew she made me angry. Instead she tried to fight her urge to talk to me. That made me even more furious. At the end she couldn't bear my silence and ignorance and started trying to pacify me.

Out of all the things she's trying to do, making my favorite pancakes is one of them. I might not forgive her yet, but, I won't toss away her effort to cook my favorite breakfast.

It might not be tasty, but, my sister cooking for me in itself is special. So, here I am eating the pancakes she made.

As they were still bickering about the pancakes, Sofia brought them some cereals to eat.

"I did exactly the way the guy on the youtube showed.", Lina whined.

"Even if the world's best chef teaches you, your cooking would still be the same.", Dylan teased.

These two can never stop bickering.

"Theo, Dyl's being mean", she complained to Theo.

"Dylan, stop it and have your breakfast.", Theo said in fake firm tone, still in the mood to tease her.

"I really did exactly the way he showed. How come it went wrong?", Lina said aloud with a pout.

"I think you mixed the wrong flour.", Arianna spoke for the first time since we started eating.

"But I mixed the white flour like  the one he mixed.", Lina said with a small frown.

Arianna giggled and said, "Most of the flours are white in color. I think you got confused.".

"Maybe you are right", Lina pouted.

The moment Arianna spoke, everyone has gone quiet. I think she realized that too, as the next moment she just averted her eyes to the bowl in front of her and her body posture seemed tensed.