Mickey's Lessons on Bad

Lesson 7: It's Curses- Not Cusses

Softly sighing, Michelle entered her house. But she could tell that something was... off. The usual silence in the house was replaced with her parents’ yelling– one thing she never heard in her life.

       Well, she had heard them yelling before, but not towards each other.

       Right when Michelle was going to walk into the kitchen, her sister suddenly came barreling down the stairs. “No!” Megan hissed, catching her younger sister’s upper arm. “Don’t go in there!”

       She looked over and allowed herself to be dragged up the stairs then into her older sister’s room. Michelle took a seat on the bed and got to the point, “Why are they fighting?”

       “Since you’re not home that much, I’m not surprised you know,” Megan murmured, her blue eyes flashing sadness as they stared at the ground. “Dad, as you know, has a drinking problem. You know it, because it’s usually not bad. But lately, he’s been drinking a lot and he’s just...” Her voice trailed off, indicating that she didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

       Even though Michelle wasn’t close to her parents, she knew that Megan was especially to their father. She was pretty much the daddy’s little girl– No, not pretty much. She is daddy’s little girl. “I’m sorry,” Michelle murmured, actually meaning her apology.

       Megan just shook her head and wiped a single tear that tried slipping from her eye. “No, it’s fine. I should say sorry to you since you have to deal with him,” she responded and the sisters smiled at each other. Megan also joined their parents in criticizing Michelle, but they still had times of being actual sisters. Their relationship could just be labeled as frenemy. “So, what did you do today at the mall?”

       “Shopped.”

       Megan cracked a smile at her response. “Hung out with the Mickey Varsity?” she asked knowingly.

       “Yeah, but just for a few minutes,” Michelle answered, recalling this morning. “I was mainly with my friends.”

       “Spill the beans. Are you and Mickey dating?”

       Her face heated up and she murmured, unable to lie to her sister, “It’s complicated.”

       Megan arched a skinny eyebrow at her response. “Complicated? Talk to meh, Michie,” she demanded, gesturing her to say more.

       Michelle spilled the beans and explained their whole “relationship” from the day Logan dumped her. She even told her sister about the countless times Mickey would kiss her. She couldn’t deny that she actually enjoyed the kisses a lot.

       “But do you have any feelings for Mickey?” Megan asked curiously. “Or feel like you’re adapting them? It sounds like you’re pretty much over Logan.”

       “I’m not over Logan,” she snapped, now defensive. “We dated for eight years.”

       Flipping her dirty blonde hair over her shoulder, Megan shook her head and clicked her tongue at her sister. “You seriously call it eight years of dating? Cooties were still around in the fourth grade, babe.”

       “Maybe, we weren’t a romantic couple back then,” Michelle responded in a murmur, feeling heat rise to her cheeks.

       “You two became an actual couple by the eighth grade. So, pretty much of three years since he dumped you before the school actually started. Plus, everyone knows that relationships like you two had wasn’t going to last.”