Saturday (CNF)

            "But she doesn't do anything!"

I pause the movie i'm watching, “Wait what did she say?” I walk up closer, rest my ear against the door. It was Regina, my older brothers girlfriend, talking with my dad.

            “She doesn’t help around the house, she doesn’t do what I tell her. All she does is stay in her room all day.” Regina says.

“Are you serious? Did she really just say that?” I thought as I listened closely. “She’s the one hat never comes out of her cave, only to criticize what we’re doing.”

            You’re not their mother, Regina” my dad responds, “you’re not supposed to be raising them, telling them what they can and can’t do.”

            “I’m not trying to raise them, Alex listens to me when I tell him to do something and he does it right away.”

            “He might listen to you, but he doesn’t listen to me and I’m his dad. He should be listening to me not you.”

“Ha! He’s finally confronting her!” I thought, a jumped back on my bed. I continued to watch the movie. My eyes started to get heavy, it was hard to keep them open, my head was falling back and I started to fall asleep. All of a sudden I heard it get quiet, “Are they really whispering?”

            “Why are you whispering? I don’t want to hide anything from Monica”

“Awwe!” I smiled when I heard him, “My daddy’s defending me.[:” it got quiet for a little bit and then the conversation started again.

            “The second she gets mad she locks herself in her room and no one can talk to her. And your exactly the same when you’re mad no one can say a word to you or else you’ll go off on them.”

            “Well you treat Monica and Alex differently.”

            “What?”

            “Yeah, Monica gets away with everything and Alex gets yelled at. You don’t punish them and that’s why they don’t change.”

             “Regina, I used to ground them but it doesn’t work, it doesn’t effect them. But they get things done their good kids and you can never treat kids the same. No matter how hard you try, its always going to be different and I don’t talk to Monica when she doesn’t do something and she listens to me.”

When my dad finished talking I could imagine Regina with her face tensed up, lips scrunched up and her arms crossed like a little angry kid.

            “When you have your own kids someday you’ll know what its really like.”

            “I don’t want kids”

“What a B****!” I thought, “How could she ever say that to my dad, she’s dating his son for Christ sakes!”

            “Well then I don’t know.”

            “I take care of my nephews, I’ve been with them since they were born.”

            “Its not the same, IF you ever have kids you find out what being a parent is really like.”

I hear a chair grind against the floor as someone gets up and leaves. Its silent from then on. “Well that must have been an intense conversation.” I sit on my bed and wait. Nothing happens. Everyone goes to their own rooms and no one comes out for the rest of the day.