House By The Sea

I can't say I have any desire to stick around my family when I turn eighteen. Last night decided that completely. Let me give you a layout of what happened:

Everything's going smoothly, all of us sitting at the table, discussing swine flu or something. Dylan and I were holding hands under the table, him squeezing my hand everytime one of the vast members of my "family" said something that he opposed. I got up to do the dishes, Jaap, Marsha's foreign exchange student, not far behind me to help. Mary starts asking questions about his education, 'what's your major? where'd you go to highschool?' innocent stuff. Nola, who was sitting on Dylan's other side, gets up to help me in the kitchen and my mom moves over a seat to sit next to Dylan and run her fingers through his hair, endearing to say the least, right? They were so nice at first! Dylan even remarked, 'you haven't brought the hard ones on yet, bring it on!' or something to that effect. Well, Mary took that literally.

I'm walking back to the sink from throwing something away when Nola turns the corner wide eyed, and I hear Mary ask Dylan, "Have you had sex before?"

WHAT THE FUCK?!

At first I'm focused on not puking everywhere, and then I imagine what Dylan's face must look like, and nausea rolls over again. This is not what I had in mind when my mom asked me to invite my boyfriend to my fathers birthday party. And what's worse, it's not even my MOTHER asking these questions. I wait for Dylan to come into the kitchen, his face pale, eyes shining with a hint of contempt in them. I kiss his cheek and apologize. He goes to the bathroom, get's another glass of water, and then goes into the den of lions again to get it over with.

At this point, I'm out of the room because Mary's shooing me away, and Dylan's on the chopping block. I hear Mary throw another one that's possible worse, "Do you plan to have sex with Madeline?"

GIVE HIM A FUCKING BREAK.

Somehow, my boyfriend managed to monologue this into something easy for them to understand. That 1.) he wasn't planning on it anytime in the near future, and 2.) why he wasn't planning on it. He handled the situation like a champ, and did perfectly, saying exactly what needed to be said with as much truth as possible.

He survived the den of drunk women who'll get you against a wall in three seconds down, gained my fathers undying respect, and managed not to leave me. Which, given the circumstances is what everyone expected, even my mother.

I love you, Dylan Benjamin Carter. I'm sorry my family's fucked.