And We Meet Again

19. Realization Hits Hard

Dedicating this chapter to one of my motivating commenters HiImmi97, thank you so much for leaving such sweet & nice comments which always make me happy & encourage me write more.

Special thanks to thevaliant07 who is always ready to make awesome banners for me. :) The banner on the side, made by her. :)

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Chapter - 18

REALIZATION HITS HARD

When I was a sophomore, I had pledged not to do two things in my entire life; the two things which were a nightmare for me; the two things, thinking about which used to give me goose bumps. Not the erotic goose bumps, but the terrified ones. And apparently, both the things were related to my sister.

There was this time in sophomore year, when I had a very important football match and it was my first match as a captain; the person who has to handle the entire team; the person who is responsible for winning or losing the match. Yes, that was me. My elder sister, Hailey, had suddenly developed a sibling love streak in herself and to see her brother reach heights by winning the match, she wanted to contribute something big in my victory. With her own creative mind, she cooked a 'very healthy match winning soup' for me the night before the big match. I was elated to see my elder sister putting so much effort for me. I remember that I couldn't budge the huge smile that was on my family's face and mine, to see their daughter cooking for the first time and their son captaining an important football match. For my parents it was a day when their kids had grown up, finally.

I suffered the consequences of being overly happy at my sister's efforts in two miserable phases. The first phase was when I took the first sip of that 'very healthy match winning' soup. It tasted, no wrong usage of words here, the soup didn't taste like anything, it just felt like someone had poured all the spices and every mismatched ingredient available. It was pathetic. The moment I had taken a sip of it, I remember how miserably, I had managed to swallow it. It was like a lump about the size of Texas in my throat.

The second phase was experienced a few hours later. I, the captain, was suffering from serious stomach problems and thus, I couldn't play that important match. It was Adam who had to captain it, whereas I was in the hospital taking medicines while cursing Hailey's cooking abilities and that was when, I took the pledge to never eat anything she cooks.

Apparently, my first ever pledge had broken yesterday when I ate the chicken she had cooked; and thankfully, I was still alive, sitting in the T.V. room with Brian, Hailey and Kim and most importantly, I was healthy. There was not even a slight feeling of any stomach problems that I could possibly face.

The second pledge that I had taken was to never go shopping with Hailey. Let's just say that she was a typical girl, who loved to shop. She goes to the mall to buy a hair clip and returns after a minimum of six hours with every possible thing except for the hair clip. And when she returns home, she cries for not being able to find the perfect hair clip and goes for shopping again as soon as possible.

As I had already broken my first pledge, I was not in a mood to break the second one, and that's why I was insisting on not going to the mall with Hailey, who was currently making her scary puppy face, which somehow Brian found very cute and eventually agreed to go.

"I'm not going with you guys," I repeated myself when Brian looked at me with expectation in his eyes.

"But why?" Hailey asked with wide eyes.

Rolling my eyes, I asked back in a 'duh' tone, "Do I really have to tell you that?"

Hailey narrowed her eyes towards me for a second and turned to look at Kim, who had been oddly quiet since yesterday. "You're coming with me to the mall, right Kim?" she asked her.