I Wish

Chapter 21

So I had the fluffy blanket. Winter had only just ended, and if it’s winter then somewhere around every living space not the kitchen there’s a blanket, and we hadn’t moved the one that lived folded on the back of the couch. It was pink. Hideously, skin colored, salmon, rosey pink and so fluffy and soft it didn’t even matter if it was ugly. It being ugly certainly helped our ability to eat under it, which was probably dad’s real reasoning when he brought it, nobody cared if it got a little bit stained. Dad was sneaky like that, and if it worked, mum let him get away with it. He was kneeling on the floor and folding clothes into perfectly neat piles. Mum was sitting on the other end of the couch, alternating her attention between the movie and her phone, and the boys. Well there’d been some sort of argument over the armchair and I’m assuming Mark had won. Going by the fact that he was lounging in it and Jeremy was sitting on the floor in front of it. 

It’s important to know that by this point I had waisted eight opportunities to say something. Eight perfectly scripted conversations that I let just fly right on past me, because every time I went to open my mouth. I don’t know… I froze. I didn’t even think I had anything to worry about. This is ridiculous, but it didn’t help telling myself that. I still felt queasy and shaking, like my stomach was doing the best to climb it’s way up my throat and turn itself inside out during the process. The more times I chickened out, the more I couldn’t keep from drawing in on myself. Pulling my knees up and, for some strange and unexplainable reason, almost instinctively making myself smaller. I was a grown adult. I should not have been this scared, and because I was this scared my perfectly scripted responses that I had agonized over were replaced with this.

“You know I don’t even blame him, she’s fire,” I said, panicking. Now given that Black Widow was changing into her spy outfit in the backseat, and as soon as he noticed he was doing his best to stare at her in the rearview mirror. Given that I found that offensive, it was a particularly stupid comment and I clapped my hand over my mouth before something else dumb could come out. 

“See, I told you your appreciation for redheaded women could be passed genetically,” dad said without even missing a beat. Mark drops his tablet, it conks Jermey on the head so it doesn’t break, and Jeremy is so surprised by what dad has just said that he doesn’t even get mad. I’m just sitting here, completely shook because this?! This right here, right now, I did not see it coming. No judgement, because it was kind of cool when I stopped and thought about it. Rock steady relationship for the win, if I’d mentioned anyone else in front of Ivy.

“You don’t know that, she could find her just as attractive in Lucy when she’s blonde,” my mum refuted, not even looking up. Like it… didn’t even matter. 

“And this? This is what I was freaking out about?” I blurted out, my voice came out in a strangely high-pitched sort of squashed tone. It dissolved into giggles, because I was just so relieved to be right about there being nothing to worry about. “I’m an i***t for worrying in the first place,” I concluded. I didn’t notice it straight away, but it was mum and dad’s turn to freeze. The shirt dad was folding falling to the floor, and mum tossing her phone on the couch between us.

“Baby… you did know that this was going to be okay, yeah?” my mum asked me hesitantly, and as I looked around the room I started to think oh. Maybe my guilt about it wasn’t so misplaced in the first place. I didn’t answer her straight away, and darted to look at dad. He looked just as horrified as she did.

“Rose?,” he said sadly, a one word entreaty to tell him that of course I had known that. I didn’t expect that it would hurt them this badly that I hadn’t been sure. 

“You are our children,” she said in a strong voice, “It was never going to matter if you like girls, or if Jeremey was using my make-up or Mark’s watching horror movies at night when he’s supposed to be sleeping. We’re always going to love you.”

“Busted,” dad chimed in happily to the boys. Mark looked like he was worried he was going to get into trouble. Jeremy looked like he was going to have an actual heart attack. He looked so panicked that if he fell over into a dead faint it wouldn’t have been surprising. 

“So why did you ever think we wouldn’t support you?” mum finished, and there was a barely noticeable sheen to her eyes. Oh for the love of… I screwed up. I made a big, big screw up. 

“If it was just me, I wouldn’t have. It wasn’t that I thought this would go badly, it was that if it did I wanted it to be me,” I said shrugging, and feeling particularly uncomfortable, “If I figured that there was no way you’d freak out about Jeremy if I was fine. I was the test run.” My mother mouthed ‘test run’ silently as if it would help her understand.

“This is about your brother?” dad asked, frowning. I wanted to slap my hand over my face and groan. Of course it was about my brother, I literally just told them that.

“Yes. Those pains in the asses over there are my little brothers, and you said I had to take care of them. So I took care of them,” I explained, “Picked on them and gave them s**t? Yeah, they’re still learning how not to be bratty, but if you think for one second I would let Jeremy potentially crash and burn like that? Even if I thought it was safe, there’s not a chance in hell. I was going first, because I had to be sure of what we were working with.”

“And if we did go… I don’t know, completely insane?” my mother questioned me quietly, “What would you have done then?” I didn’t think twice about answering her, I didn’t need to.

“For those boys? Whatever the f**k I had to,” I swore vehmenately. She was so close to crying that she threw her glasses on the couch in a vain attempt to hide how they were fogging up, and threw her arms around me.

“Good girl,” she whispered softly.

“Yeah,” my dad agreed with her, “We’re proud of you.”

“Don’t be too proud,” I said with my face buried in mum's shoulder, “If you bring this up after we leave this room, I’ll deny all of it with my dying breath.” Okay, so that time I was lying, but I won't tell them if you won’t. That had them both laughing, mum giving me a final tight squeeze before releasing me. It was amazing how light and tingly I felt, my limbs all but refusing to cooperate. Feeling like they were going to up and float away at any second.

“So Rose likes girls, mum likes girls, and Jeremy is a girl?” Mark asked, and that last part would have sounded mocking but he was so genuinely confused that it was clear he was just trying to clarify.

“Jeremy is a boy,” I refuted using the information he’d given me, “He just likes to feel good about himself, and the things that they are saying are for girls help to do that.” It wasn’t offensive how they turned to him and waited for some kind of indication that I was telling the truth, because he… Do I have to explain how he absolutely should be the person who gets to give the finally okay for that? You know what, I’m just going to assume that it’s obvious.

“Okay,” mum said when he nodded, as if that was all there was to it. A wide grin stretched across my face, and with it my whole hearted approval. It all at once struck me just how privileged I was for this to be my family. I have to admit, I came out good in the universal lucky draw.

“Don’t think this means you’re getting out of telling me what movies you’ve been watching,” dad said to Mark, “I mean we know which ones you’ve been watching but I want to know your favourites.” Mark brightened up, I think he was feeling a little forgotten in the mix of things.

“Can I watch IT after we’re done with school today?” he asked, and I didn’t listen to the answer. If they were going to be watching that, I was going to be somewhere else. I wasn’t naive enough to think he’d put the Tim Curry version on, and I’d tapped out of the newer ones a long time ago. Mum had started talking to Jeremy about things he might need. I chimed into that conversation every now and then. He had his phone out and was showing her looks that he wanted to try. It was funny to watch her tell him that it wasn’t discriminatory if she wouldn’t let me do it either.

“But she’s an adult, she doesn’t have to listen to you?” He questioned her, and both my parents snorted and moved on with the conversation without any other comment. It was really sucky to find out that my attempts at sewing… Well, let’s just say that I didn’t do as good a job as I thought I had.

“I can show you how to do it properly,” mum offered, while praising me for attempting it in the first place. I’d just laughed at her and shook my head.

“Why would I do that? He’s got you now,” I said matter of factly. I didn’t do it in the first place because it was fun. I did it because he deserved clothes that made him feel comfortable in his own skin, not because I thought it would be fun. It was frustrating, I hadn’t been particularly good at it, and now that someone more capable was stepping up - completely unnecessary. This made her happy, or at the very least appeared to undo a small part of the damage I’d caused with my doubt. Dad and Mark floated off at some point, dad going to put away the clothes and Mark going to set up for classes again. Jeremy went and joined him, and mum started to get the meat out of the freezer to defrost for dinner later. This left me sitting in the lounge and watching the ending credits of Iron Man by myself. Things had gone much better than I had expected them to, maybe trying really did make all the difference. In fact this had gone so well that I was going to try and keep it on a roll. Tomorrow night I will go and visit Ivy again. What was the point in avoiding her when nothing I could do would keep her out of my head anyway? Plus, I was feeling lucky… which helped because Ivy may care about me in some twisted magical way but she was most certainly a gamble. Today has just left me feeling optimistic about it, is all.