Pacific Bell High

> XIII <

"Mom. Dad. Seriously. Can you two not? I'm in here and I'm eating."

Ciara frowned at her parents as they gave each other googly-eyes across the table. Of course, they left Ciara in the middle. She had to endure the whole thing.

"We can't stop, Ciara. Can't you tell?" Her mother, Lia, said dreamily as she placed her head in her hands and stared at the man across the table.

"We're in love, baby." Her father, Daniel, had finished off as he smiled brightly at Lia.

Ciara buried her head in her hands. For Christ's sake, they were both thirty-six and doing this. She didn't mind that they were in love and all, but she didn't want to hear about their magical times at make-out hill.

Which they constantly talked about.

Lia turned to Ciara and reached out to lightly squeeze her cheeks. Her mother had bright blue eyes, high cheekbones, and rosy lips. Her red hair was pulled up into a bun since she loved to bounce around and clean the house by herself--she hated hair in her face.

Her father also had red hair -- a match made in heaven, as Ciara said it -- and green eyes. He had grown out a small beard that often tickled Ciara's face when she was younger and even now.

She only had black hair because she had dyed it before entering the school -- and cut it short from where it stopped mid-back. Too much similarities, Ciara thought, too much similarities and they'll think I'm like them.

"You will be happy one day, Ciara. Just like your father and I." Lia let out ecstatically.

"And you'll get something beautiful out of it." Daniel backed up. Of course he would. They finished each others sentences. All the time.

"Just like we got you out of our love--our little princess!" Her mother let out. That's when her and Daniel sighed dreamily together.

Ciara opened her mouth and stuck her finger mid-way, pretending to gag. She pushed out her chair and grabbed her plate of food.

"If you need me," she started as she walked towards the kitchen doorway, "I'll be in my bedroom. Trying not to throw up the food from how much love you put in it."

She overheard her parents laugh and her mother telling her father how she couldn't wait until Ciara found 'the one'.

They had known about her relationship with Martin -- they did date for a long while.

And, although it may sound fucked up, they met him by mistake.

They had about a year when it happened. Martin had driven her home after she called him to tell him that her car had broken down, and when he got there, her parents did, too.

Apparently, they were at a date and decided to come early, out of all those days.

Her parents had came out of the car and had asked her who he was. Before she could come up with something, Martin had answered that he was her boyfriend and -- BOOM! Her mother loved him from that moment. Her father had accepted him -- shook his hand and everything.