Dreamland// P. Parker

38. Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 23, 2017.

Tis' the season, as they say. Well, that may be true for Christmas, but I also include Thanksgiving. It was the season for giving, family, love, you know, the usual mushy stuff. And I would say not having any family to spend the holidays with was the case, but it wasn't. I had two worlds filled with my own family. I was proven to be thankful. 

Don't get me wrong, I was grateful for everything everyone had done for me. But if we put aside the world full of superheroes, I had no family in the other world. At least, I hadn't met Axel yet, my mother never spent Thanksgiving with me, and Mrs. Luke had her own family to visit. But with Jenna staying with Steven and his family, she decided she didn't want to go anywhere. Mrs. Luke wasn't close to any of her family, but she always went for Jenna. 

So, she invited Axel and me over. Axel's parents were never around to spend the holidays with him, so it was a good opportunity to get him out of the house. Especially during the holiday.

As for the other world, I had remembered previous Thanksgivings. May or Melody usually held the dinner at either one of their houses. Usually, it was Melody, May, Ben, Peter, and me. But Ben wasn't around anymore. 

Man, I missed him.

It had been the second Thanksgiving without Uncle Ben. I knew the holidays were already rough for them, but losing Uncle Ben broke them both. Ben was a good man, a very good man. I couldn't imagine the pain Peter and May felt when they lost him. I mean, I understood what it was like to lose a man that meant the world to me, but it was different. Everyone deals with grief in their way. Therefore, I couldn't compare my situation to Peter's or May's. I had never met a person that didn't like Uncle Ben. 

Melody also had her troubles during the holidays. She lost her brother, after all. Not to mention my mother had died with him, but she didn't focus too much on my mother. I could understand why. But I'm sure they were on Melody's mind. 

I had my father to think of. Just like Melody, I missed him, too. It had been a while since I spent time with my father during the holidays, but it was still difficult to wrap my head around. He made them so much better. He always tried to keep the spirits high and made it fun. I knew he had tried for me. Even though we were tight on money, we always tried to make the best out of it. 

It was Melody's turn to host Thanksgiving dinner. A week or so before Thanksgiving, she put the turkey into the fridge from the freezer.

"What if it doesn't thaw by the time I need to cook it? It's a bigger turkey than I usually buy," she exclaimed as she ran around like a chicken with its head cut off...Or, in this case, a turkey. Get it? Because it's Thanksgiving? Eh, my joke wasn't that funny anyway. You don't have to laugh.

Ahem, moving on.

Ryan and I watched as Melody paced back and forth the kitchen like a mad-man. No! A mad-woman! No! A mad-person. I mean, let's keep it gender-neutral, yeah?

Ryan took a sip of his coffee, a look of amusement on his face. He bounced his pajama-clad leg as he focused his attention on Melody. 

"Hm, I think you'll be okay. Don't worry about it," Ryan reassured Melody. I shot him a stink eye of suspicion. He better not be lying. After all, his predictions were never set in stone. But I did agree with him; it would probably turn out okay. 

"You think so?" 

"I do," he stated. "Now, don't worry about it anymore. Do you need help cooking breakfast?"

She blushed. "Yeah! That would be great!"

Mushy, absolutely mushy. I could not stand this lovey-dovey, smoochy grossness! Absolutely sickening!