His Best Friend's Sister

“We had lunch half an hour ago,” I said.

Dad came out and sat down on the swing beside me. He was silent for a few seconds, just gliding along and looking around casually like this was a totally normal situation unfolding. Finally, he looked over at me.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Like I just told Mom. What’s going on? Why are you two checking on me so much?”

They exchanged glances. There was a significance in that look, something they didn’t need to say because it had obviously already been discussed. That was a look I was pretty familiar with. I’d been on the receiving end of it quite a bit when I was younger.

Their protectiveness was not a new phenomenon. They had been attempting to shield me from the world and only stopping short of wrapping me in bubble wrap because of the expense and risk of noise complaints going way back. But this felt like it was building up to something. Or orbiting around it in a desperate attempt not to actually mention it.

I couldn’t decide which would seem like the worse situation.

“We’re just concerned about you,” he said.

“Why?”

“Well, it’s just…” he started.

“Considering the day and all, we figured you might be having a hard time,” Mom said, finishing the thought for him.

I cocked my head to the side and gave each of them a questioning look in turn. “What do you mean considering the day?”

Their eyes snapped to each other, and I noticed a shocked expression flicker across both of their faces.

“You didn’t even think about it?” Dad asked.

I shook my head, not knowing what he was talking about. Then suddenly, the date popped into my mind. I really hadn’t thought about it. Not even when I was standing in the airport thinking about the fact that I should have been arriving for my honeymoon rather than getting to Astoria.

I thought about the fact that we decided to wait a few weeks after our wedding to go on our honeymoon, but I had conveniently skipped past the most significant reason. We wanted the time to decompress and just enjoy the first little bit of being married. But we also wanted to be on our honeymoon on this particular date, the anniversary of when Steven proposed to me.

Mom swooped in and perched herself on the edge of the swing beside me. It definitely wasn’t designed to hold all three of us, but she was going to make it happen. Her arm clamped around my shoulders, and she squeezed me in tight.

“It’s alright, baby. I know this is hard for you. We’re here for you. Let me make you something to eat and we can talk,” she said.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Thank you, but…”

“She doesn’t want to talk about it,” Dad said, adding his arm to the mix. “And that’s perfectly okay. We’re here. We don’t have to say anything at all. We can just sit together.”

We fell into a tense silence for a few seconds, and then Mom looked at me.

“Hungry yet?”

Yep. That was it. I had officially reached my quota for their hovering for the afternoon. They were treating me like I was so fragile I was going to break at any second, and it was getting on my last nerve. I knew they were worried about me and wanted to make sure I was getting through all this alright, but there was only so much of their overactive concern I could actually take.

Wrangling free of their arms, I stood up from the swing. “Actually, I had plans this afternoon.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket to ostensibly check the time. “And I’m running late. But I’ll see you later.”

I rushed inside before they could ask any questions. I threw on a pair of shoes, grabbed my bag, and ran out. Dad had already handed over the spare keys to his car and said I could use it whenever I needed to, so I hopped behind the wheel. I had every intention of buying myself a car as soon as I had money coming in. In a lot of ways, that was an even higher priority for me than finding my own place to live.

I drove away from the house with a wave out the window and took the first turn in the neighborhood to get out of their view. Then I hesitated. I had no plans. I didn’t even have any contemplations for what might be plans. The only thing I had come up with for that day was to sit on the porch swing and read.

That thought gave me the idea for where I should go, and I did a few complicated turns and twists to get out of the neighborhood without driving back past my parents’ house. A few minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot behind the local library.