Wednesday, January 8, 2014

As Perceived by Crystellen Treasure 6

I smiled.  “I felt a lot of warmth for you.”  In retrospect, I should have added that he seemed very insecure, but instead I said, “Confusion too, but a close personal-”

Always the angel, my sister protested that she didn’t want to know more.  But, I knew she really did, so once I saw that Losten was asleep, I continued.  “To be honest, Em, I think he’s just shy.  I think that’s the reason he didn’t ask you out sooner.”

My sister glared at me.

I turned around to head back to my room when our mother stopped me.  “Where do you think you’re going?” she asked.

I’m going to continue my nap,” I replied.  “He’s asleep and my shift starts in a few hours.”
“You’re staying right here, young lady,” my mother replied.  “One of your cousins can cover your shift for you.”

Oh, great, I thought.  Just what I wanted to do, sit around in awkward silence while we see how Emerys’ boyfriend feels.  I stared at my sister.  Why had we grown apart so much?  It was all Cat’s fault; she’s the one who left us.

“So, shall I call you sister?” Robert had asked.  He looked down at me from where he stood at the wedding reception beside Cat.
My only response was to give him a frosty stare.

“All right,” he continued, “Crystellen it is then.”  He bent down and smiled at me.  “I’m happy to have you as my sister-in-law.”

Like right, I thought.  Ever since he’d proposed to Cat, I’d done my part to make his life as unpleasant as possible.  I mean, why did my sister need to go off and get married?  Our family was fine as it was.  Not that I knew her well.  I was twelve, or maybe twelve-ish, now that my aging had slowed.  Cat was, well, somewhere in her mid-twenties.
But, why’d she have to bring him into our world?  Robert was okay, but he complicated things.  Once Cat told him about her tail, and he reconciled the existence of mermaids with his world view, my mother felt like we could just discuss anything around him.  Anything.  Like he was part of the family.

Okay, so technically he was part of the family.  But, that’s beside the point.

“Come on, Crissy,” Emerys said.

I turned around.  Somehow, she had wondered up to where I stood beside a bouquet of flowers without me noticing.

“Will you come dance with me?” she asked.
I leaned back.  Unlike Em, the last thing I wanted to do was go dance at a wedding in front of people.  I glanced around.  There were all these people here we didn’t know.

“Why don’t you get one of the guys here to dance with you?” I replied.
She shook her head.  “Come on, it’ll be fun.”  She leaned towards me.  “Besides, all the guys here are a lot older than I am.  I don’t want to dance with some guy twice my age.”

3 comments:

  1. Basically Robert has been there done that, got the mermaid. Perhaps an Obi wan to losten's Luke.

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  2. Nah, if anyone's Luke, it'd be Robert.

    As for Losten, he's probably most like the original Jar Jar Binks! :P

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  3. Heh I dunno Losten speaks a little better than that though they are similar in their cluelessness.

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