Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
And Jay started drinking.
Things had gone straight to hell after that.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was barely an hour in when he planted himself in front of the TV with his third beer, heckling every float that drifted onto the screen. When the giant Snoopy balloon appeared, he barked, “Who the hell cares about a depressed dog?” and when the high school performers came out, he muttered something gross under his breath about the cheerleaders that made me want to crawl into the floorboards.
Georgie had been sitting cross-legged on the rug, wide-eyed and excited, but every time he tried to point something out — “Look, Ariana! It’s Pikachu!” — Jay talked right over him, yelling about how the whole thing was “a soft participation-trophy circus.” Eventually, Georgie just… stopped talking.
He curled in on himself, shrinking smaller with each slurred commentary Jay shouted at the screen.
And that was only the start.
Once the parade ended, Jay decided Georgie needed to learn how to throw a football. He grabbed one of my decorative pumpkins and chucked it across the apartment to demonstrate — where it exploded against the wall, seeds sliding down the paint. He only laughed, grabbing another beer as if this was all perfectly normal.
Then came the kitchen critiques. Jay stumbled around the kitchen assessing every aspect of my perfectly planned day. He lifted pot lids, stuck his fingers into the mashed potatoes, and started gagging after tasting the cranberry sauce. It was a nice touch when he called Shane “chef boy-ar-dumb” when he asked my mom how to make turkey gravy — which he’d only done to try to include her.
Through it all, I could see how hard Shane worked to restrain himself, to be kind to my asshole of a relative when I knew he wanted to throw him right out. He let me know he was with me every time he passed — a hand on my back, a kiss to my cheek, a smile from across the kitchen.
I was still mortified.
Mom had trailed behind Jay silently for a while, fixing whatever he messed with — the thermostat he kept cranking, the fridge he left open after getting another beer, the cabinet door he let slam hard enough to rattle the shelves. But eventually, she just gave up.
By the time the casseroles went in the oven and the football games started, the beautiful holiday I’d imagined was gone. The whole day had dissolved in front of me — one humiliating, heartbreaking moment at a time.
And now, we were less than ten minutes from dinner being ready and it was pure chaos.
“Come on, Georgie. You gotta man up! Not gonna be a boy forever!” Jay was screaming so loud I was sure all our neighbors in the apartment building could hear. He shoved my little brother down to the ground, rolling his eyes when Georgie cried before Jay was screaming for him to stand again.
“Don’t cry like a girl. Get mad! Fight back!”
He pushed Georgie again and my heart cracked.
He wasn’t hurting him, the shoves soft enough to just land Georgie on his butt. But the kid was just barely six years old, and I could see it in his eyes — it was the same emotion I’d grown up with my whole life.
Fear.
Shane’s hand swept across my lower back gently, but I still winced, my cortisol levels through the roof. I turned to him wide-eyed, and my fingers curled in his sweater as I clung to him. “I am so sorry. I’m… I’m mortified.” My eyes grew wider when I spotted the water I was boiling for the stuffing spilling over onto our stovetop. “Shit!”
Jay carried on in the living room as I ran to handle the mess before I burned the whole place down. Everything seemed to be happening all at once: the stuffing needed to go in the water, the rolls needed to go in the oven, the casseroles needed to come out, I needed to whip up the gravy, Jay needed to go the fuck to sleep or something, and Mom was so useless all I wanted her to do was get out of my way.
My heart was aching beneath all the panic, the sour reality of the holiday at war with what I’d had pictured in my mind. I was naïve to think we could host a beautiful, calm holiday with my family here, that we could have a normal dinner where everyone smiled and went around the table saying what they were thankful for.
Thank God Shane’s grandparents couldn’t make it.
I shuddered at the thought of them being here to witness the disaster.
Somewhere in the background as I dashed around the kitchen, I heard my mom try to wrangle Jay. It was a feeble attempt, and he screamed at her for it before lifting his hand in warning. He seemed to remember where he was before he put it back down and sulked on the couch, draining the beer in his hand before storming to get another.