Seeing Red [✓]

xii. another one

Chapter 12, "another one"

It truly doesn't matter how old you get, sitting across from your parents after a mistake is always a rough experience.

I got a bad grade in an Economics exam in high school, and I remember first looking at Ma, and how her smile faded a bit and how the sides of her face didn't crinkle when she really smiled.

It was always disappointing looking at their disappointment.

So, now sitting across from them, with Kenzie seated on the lam stand, with Harambe seated at this feet looking like a gray ball of fluffy, teased out cotton, I was nervous.

"We are so disappointed," Ma said, spoke, her voice shaking a bit, rattling like an aftershock, rather than the earthquake itself. She was obviously saving that for Dad.

"It ain't really his fault tho," Kenzie tried, from behind.

"Don't interrupt your mother, Kenneth," Dad spoke and the floor quaked as he did. "Your brother is engaged –to a man – and hasn't told us anything." 

Moms head went to her lap. I silently thanked God for the vase of tulips that was blocking Dad from seeing my full face, and vice versa.

"I'm sorry," I said, and as much as I wanted those words to taste like regret and guilt, they instead, came out tasting of apathy and not-giving-a-fuck about My Dads opinion. "Mom," I added. She looked up. "I repeated. "I'm sorry, Ma."

"You think not saying sorry to me hurts me, Ashley?" Dad asked. He grinned a bit, and something told me he wasn't tasting humor. "I've been in prison for years. Disrespect from my last child doesn't quite have the effect on me that you think it might have."

"Jesus," I groaned, falling backward against the chair, and sliding myself down a bit. Titling my head so the flowers blocked Dad, instead of Mom. "Not everything revolves around you, Dad," I bit. "I'm not gay because you weren't around a lot, you aren't the reason I married some white guy, you aren't the reason for anything that has happened in my life, because quite frankly, you haven't been in it a significant amount of time to have."