16 Weekend with Matthews Pt 2

"Look, you can't design your life like a building . It doesn't work that way. You just have to live it...and it'll design itself."

"What about this?"

"Nope."

"This?"

"Nope."

"This?"

"Not happening."

"Does this work?"

"Do you wanna look like a 50 year old?"

"Fair enough."

I sighed.

"Let's try again."

________________________________________________________________________________

After scanning almost all the shops in the mall, Elena finally - and I didn't say that lightly - settled on five dresses, three tank tops , three pairs of sneakers, two pairs of heels and finally some undergarments.

"I'm starving!" I whined, crumbling under the weight of the bags.

"One more shop."

"What?" I frowned. "Didn't you settle with these?"

"Well, no harm done to check, right?"

I shook my head. "I can't believe you."

____________________________________________________________________

"This looks great, doesn't it?" Elena twirled in front of the mirror. She was trying on a white floral knee length dress.

"At this point, anything looks great on you Elena." I said, staring at her reflection.

"What do you mean by 'At this point'?" She glared at me through the mirror, crossing her arms against her chest.

"How many marks should I answer the question for?" I smirked.

"One mark works for me."

"Never mind."

"I want an answer!" She yelled.

"That was the answer." I smiled.

She shook her head. "You are unbelievable."

I grinned. "Thank you for the compliment."

"I am buying this." She decided.

I frowned. "You said, 'I'll check' not 'I'll buy'."

She patted my shoulder. "You have no idea what it feels like to be a girl."

Thank God!

I scoffed. "Yeah, thank God."

She smiled, in a wicked manner. "Don't forget to take the bags."

Oh man!

__________________________________________________________________________

After another hour of full-fledged torture, Elena finally allowed me to feed my grumbling stomach. We stopped in front of McDonalds.

"What do you wanna have? My treat."

Elena shrugged. "It's your treat whether you like it or not, because I ain't no money."

"Okay, lemme try again." I paused for a split second. "What do you wanna have, Elena?"

"Hmm, lemme think."

"Do not say that word again!" I scolded. "Every time you do, you have something going on in that tiny head of yours!"

"Of course, I do. It's not everyday your brother treats you."

I glared at her.

She raised her hands in defense. "Just kidding."

You know, for a ten-year old, she was really weird.

Really, really weird.

After we placed our orders at the counter, we took a seat at a booth that was farthest from the door. One would say, we loved our privacy. But there was another reason, we were here.

Less noise.

While we waited for our orders, we chatted about some crazy, random stuff- like what happened at her school and then what happened at my school and then what crazy videos we watched and well, how amazing this weekend was.

Until the 'topic' came.

"I got a phone call from Dad." She quietly admitted.

Before I could say something, a waiter came by and placed our 'happy meals' in front of us. He quickly left the booth to serve other orders.

"What?"

"Yeah, dad called."

Okay, if you're wondering why it was surprising for someone's parent to call, well- let me help you get this straight. My parents were never the kind of people to ever call when they were on a trip. Now that's weird. No parents - in the world- would not go by a second without calling.

Well- for those people who agree to the last statement- clearly hadn't met my parents.

"What'd he say?" I asked , taking a bite from my oh so ravishing burger.

"They're coming home." She smiled.

"I'm glad." I uttered, without missing a beat.

"No you're not."

"Well, maybe not as much as you."

"I'm not happy too." She confessed.

I stared at her, eyebrows furrowed. "But you-"

"-wanted them to be there and asked for a normal childhood? Well, guess what, Jakey, I gave this a lot of thought."

"Thought?"

"Yeah, thought. I wondered what would it be like if our parents and we were close. Turns out, I'd miss every single thing I had with you."

"You aren't a time traveler , are you?" When she didn't speak, I gasped. "Oh my god! Where is my sister and what have you done to her and who the hell are you?!"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course not! Stop being ridiculous, Jakey. I'm serious."

"Then?" I prompted.

"You're my everything, Jakey. You've always been around. You've been a father, a mother and a brother to me - I don't wanna ever lose this-" She pointed the space between us. "This banter, this bonding, this 'connection' that we have. And as far as our 'so-called' parents are involved -they don't care. All they're after is money, money and tons of money."

"We may be rich in terms of money but we never learnt to care or love any other human being other than each other. I want that to change. For the both of us. And when I thought, we'd finally be able to do this- our parents pop out of nowhere asking for the reins of our lives."

I raised my eyebrows. "Wait- what? Reins of our lives?"

"Yeah, they are coming back plus they are going to set some weird ass rules and regulations for us to follow." She sighed. "Who the hell does that?"

"Normal parents."

"You weren't supposed to answer that."

"I did, anyway. Besides, you should act like a ten-year old rather than a seventeen-year old-"

"-soon to be eighteen, I remember." She paused for a spilt second. "But I grew up quickly."

"How long are they planning to stay?"

"As far as I know - until your birthday."

I frowned. "But I should be free after that, those rules shouldn't be applied to me."

She took a sip from her coke. "Well, we do not have normal parents and no normal lifestyle, so yeah."

"As far as we know, they'll be here next week, then." I ran my hand through my hair. "Worst Birthday Ever."

Elena gave her signature smirk. "I don't think so."