Today is my five-year anniversary of writing on FFnet. I can't believe it's been FIVE YEARS!
To celebrate, here's a silly little drabble. I have no plans to make this into a full-fledged story. I just thought a taste of Teenage!Simon would be kinda fun.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters I mention herein, and I am not making any money from this.
Family Ties
"Suck it up and tell her, kiddo." I could practically hear Derek shaking his head through the phone. "You know me and Casey have had to deal with our fair share of narrow-mindedness. If you like this girl she's gonna be around for awhile, which means we'd meet her eventually, right? Rip off the band-aid now."
I can always count on Derek to be blunt, which is why I called Casey about my problem. But I forgot those two never do anything without each other, including phone calls.
"Simon, you know I hate to say it, but Derek's right," Casey chimed in.
"Ha!" I could hear Derek bellow in the background.
"It's not that I think she's gonna judge. It's just awkward," I sighed.
"If she can't handle it she has no business being with you."
"Der-ek!"
I could hear a muted scuffle as Casey wrestled the phone away from him.
"Let me try to say this with a little more tact," Casey said breathlessly. She collected herself. "You guys have been together, what, a couple months? She must really like you if she's asking to meet your family—so that means she'll accept you no matter what."
"I guess … " She really wasn't making me feel any better.
"Look, when I was your age I dated a guy who didn't know how to handle our family. He did his best, but—"
"If that was Max's best I'd hate to see his worst," Derek said, sounding far away but still pretty clear.
"Hush," Casey said. "Let's not start."
"No, let's!" I said, happy to change the subject. "Der, tell me again how awful all of Casey's high school boyfriends were—"
There were more scuffling sounds as Derek regained control of the phone. "Let's rank them from most to least douchebaggy … "
"Der-ek!"
lwdlwdlwdlwdlwdlwdlwdlwdlwdl wdlwdlwdlwdlwd
I did feel a little better after getting off the phone with my brother and sister. It reminded me how much fun they are. If I can see it, maybe my new girlfriend can, too. This is the first girl I'm serious enough about to invite her to meet everyone. But I'm nervous about explaining our family to her.
She's an only child. So for all she knows, it might be perfectly normal to have two sisters who are also my sisters-in-law and two brothers who are also my brothers-in-law.
It's been normal to me, because that's all I know. Marti is always quick to point out (jokingly, I think) how unfair it is that Mom didn't have a son for her to marry, but she's done okay. Her boyfriend is pretty chill. The first time he met all of us, he said, "You don't have to adopt me so I can date Marti, do you?"
It was a ballsy remark and he got away with it because he's such a good guy. Come to think of it, he's a lot like Derek. He's perfect for Marti.
Most of the time I don't mind that my siblings are so much older than me. I have the whole second floor to myself since they all moved out long ago; I'm pretty tight with my parents, enough so that they trust me to do pretty much whatever I want; and I have lots of people to go to for advice or complaints like with that phone call.
Now I have to work up the courage to invite my girlfriend over for a family dinner.
Maybe I'll call Liz and Ed first. I'm not stalling, I swear …