Disclaimer - I don't own Baby-Sitters Club 2023. This is the "next" one-shot in my Life Moments series, which got sidelined because I'd misplaced my notes, and I've been wanting to finish the series, so here is the story for Kristy for the seventh episode. This is also for the second regular Froday challenge for September 2023 where the prompt is next.
Kristy: Old and New
Dad—
The concept of a father in her mind was unreliable unfathomable, a direct correlation with the male part of the species being unreliable, unfathomable.
Of course—
Kristy liked to not think of her own brothers, ignoring the fact her own brothers at times, at the very least, provided a contradiction to the unreliable narrative running through her head, as her oldest brother did, in fact, come to bat when it came to her younger brother, that perhaps she'd learned some of her own skills from her oldest brother.
Older brothers were in a distinct predicament, almost as if not part of the human species at all, perhaps an enigma of their own.
Dads though—
Kristy didn't see any reason to accept Watson Brewer as a part of the family and instead found herself—
Watching the Brewer kids was a job, a job she could easily handle, nor did she need his attempts at bonding with her, of that room—the big old room, feeling like some kind of—bribe was the right word perhaps, yet perhaps not wholly the only word she needed to describe how she felt, yet there was that feeling of him wanting to accept her, of forcing the relationship.
And, of course, there was that significant old level of awkwardness that came with the room, a feeling of being out of sorts with the idea of a new life coming, of everything turning upside down, of change—
At least her job as a babysitter wasn't going to change, and she could handle—
Or perhaps not.
There was that gut feeling, the guilt for not being responsible, of not being able to stop the marring of what must be a super expensive car from happening while she found herself locked in a room, her gut dropping at the idea of having failed, of messing up, something unfathomable in her mind.
Yet—
There was something to the way her future stepfather handled the situation, of not blaming her, of not getting mad, of saying they didn't have to tell her mother, which in the back of her mind was not a good thing, what with how strained things were between them regarding her mother getting remarried.
And perhaps that's where the real enemy lay, not with Watson Brewer, but instead, the fact change was happening, change she didn't want. Still, regarding the new room, there might perhaps be a level of understanding that his goal wasn't so much an attempt to try and bond with her, of trying too hard to do so, but more of a level of understanding that she wasn't happy with the change, and testing in his own way to be more accessible.
And if it wasn't him, she was mad at, perhaps it was someone else.
There was still this odd grain of being anti-whatever, of wanting to lash out, yet she also wanted to be—
The room now represented freedom, which still felt awkward, yet less so.