Looking to Lose (completed)

*2*

The whole family is home for dinner tonight. Unlike most parents who sit on opposite heads of the table, my parents always sit next to each other, hands intertwined under the table. Across from them sit my two twin brothers, Aiden and Alex, who just turned ten last month. I sit at the head of the table (or the butt depending how you look at it) and my sister, Jayla, sits at the other end.

My dad scoops out hefty portions of lasagna on each of our plates while my mom asks the twins about their day at school. Unlike me, my siblings are all still stuck in school for another month. The twins instantly launch into a story about how their fifth-grade teacher let them build contraptions to keep an egg from cracking when they threw it out of their second-story window. Aiden, the smarter one, crafted a large parachute for his egg, whereas Alex, the funny one, named his Humpty Dumpty before ceremoniously chucking out the window, sans protection. Jayla's answer is less class oriented as she talks excitedly about senior prom which is taking place tomorrow. Her eyes sparkle as she talks about her boyfriend, Rick, and how he gets to drive his uncle's Jaguar to take them both. I inwardly gag. Not that I'm not happy for Jayla but, I mean, I'm the older sister! Shouldn't I be the one with a boyfriend?

"And how was work honey?" My dad asks, turning to me, effectively cutting off any more jabbering about Rick Jayla can squeeze into the dinner conversation. My parents love us all dearly, and are pretty liberal in their parenting practices, but that doesn't mean he has to enjoy hearing my 17-yr old sister talk about how much she loves her boyfriend.

"Nothing special," I say, trying to shove the disappointment about trolley boy far out of my head.

"How's Ros?" My mom asks. "I should really call her and plan a dinner soon. I haven't seen her in ages," she shakes her head. She still considers Roslyn her best friend, but adult life seems to get in the way a lot.

"She's great – still working really hard," I say with a mouth full of lasagna. "You could always come to the shop and sit at the bar for a while to chat with her," I offer. As much as Ros claims spring is a great season for reading, often people would rather be doing outdoor activities, meaning May is a pretty calm month for us. "I'm sure Ros could spare an hour or so, and I can take over the inventory."

"Oh honey, you're so sweet," my mom coos. She is such a typical mom. Actually, we are such a typical family. Loving parents, four kids, and a dog all perched in a brick home at the top of the hill overlooking the city. The only thing we are missing is the white picket fence.

Some kids rebel against such a perfect life, but I've never been like that. I'm aware of how lucky I am to have grown up so well, with so many opportunities – why would I waste that? Sure, I get drunk with my friends on weekends and I have a tattoo, but I never do anything that can seriously jeopardize my future, and I never, ever get caught. Maybe that's why I'm still a virgin, I think bitterly. Because I'm Miss-Goody-Two-Shoes. I play by the rules, always.

"Our perfect daughter," my dad says with a joking tone, but the love in his eyes shows he means it. Though he means well, I inwardly groan. For once – just for once – I don't want to be the perfect daughter. I want to be the exciting, rebellious, reckless one. I guess that just isn't me.

"Hey!" Jayla says indignantly.

"Sorry honey, you'd only be the perfect daughter if you did the dishes," my dad says with a sly smile. Groaning outwardly now, my sister starts to clear of the table, not because she wants to be the perfect daughter so bad, but because it's her day to do the dishes anyways.

Happy to be free of dish duty for one night, I skip up to my room and facetime Mila. At first all I see is bright blue, and then the phone is pulled up out of the water and sunlight sparkles down, illuminating my best friend. I chuckle when I realize she's facetiming me from the Caribbean. Literally, she is floating in the Caribbean ocean.