NaNoWriMo Days 17 - 20
I have been sick since Saturday evening and I really didn’t feel like writing. But since I didn’t write much before the weekend, I figured I could try and push today. Well, I made it past the 10,000 mark! I am now at 10,501 words total. With the Thanksgiving break coming up, maybe I’ll give myself a rest and eat some good food.
Here is an excerpt from what I wrote today. Enjoy.
“Fuck you!”
She had waited until I left the room but I heard her say it. Setting the speakers down in my office, I turned on my heels and came marching back into my guest room.
“Excuse me? Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”
I had had enough. Savannah was behaving like a brat. Correction, she was a brat. Spoiled, inconsiderate, selfish and lazy. No wonder Mom and Dad had had enough of her as well. They probably figured since I turned the company around, I could do the same for her. But Holden Enterprises was a business, Savannah, well that would take a miracle.
Today, I was fresh out of patience and done with her attitude. Since the night at the bar, she had been moody, loud, rude, and completely unpleasant to be around. I thought she would have gotten over our tiff by now but apparently not.
“You know what?” I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“What? You’re going to kick me out just like Mom and Dad,” she beat me to the punch line.
“I just might if you continue with this behavior.” I pointed a finger at her just like our father used to. Oh great, the last thing I wanted was to become my father.
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes and turned her back on me.
Now the anger in me was ready to yank her skinny behind up and drag her out of my apartment. But one of two things would happen, she’d go limp and I’d eventually tire and just go to bed. Or, I would call Mom and Dad to handle this, which I absolutely did not want to do. I didn’t want them to think I couldn't handle raising my little sister. Plus, calling Mom and Dad felt like tattling. And if it’s one thing me and my sister learned early on, never tell on the other one to our parents.
So I had to come up with a different approach.
“Do you want to just tell me what this is all about so I don’t have to figure it out?” Not the best choice of words but it’d get the ball rolling.
“Hmph,” was her only response. Okay, so she wanted to play hard ball. Well two could play that game.
I left her room and went straight into the kitchen. There were very few things that excited Savannah more than chocolate chip cookies and jewelry. Well, I wasn’t about to buy her jewelry, but I could bake cookies.
When my parents informed me (or rather forced me) that my sister would be staying with me, I made sure to stock up on all the things she liked. She was twenty-one after all, so she could still eat BagelBites in the middle of night and not have acid reflux all day at work the next day; she could eat an entire tub of Snickers ice cream and not gain weight or feel bloated; hell she could go a whole week without any fruits or vegetables and be completely fine.
I guessed the reason I never had the luxury when I was twenty-one was because I was busy raising my sister alongside my parents (mostly my mother. I don’t remember Dad being there all that much). But I wouldn’t change a thing. Savannah gave me purpose when I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up. She helped me learn responsibility early on in life that most people didn’t learn until their thirties.
Plus, it was nice having someone look up to me as though I were the hero, rather than look down on me as though I were a disappointment.
Once the cookies were done baking, I pulled them out of the oven and fanned my mitted hand over them so the smell could waft all through the apartment.
She didn’t come bounding out but I expected as much. Time for tactic number two. “Well, I guess I’m going to have to eat all these cookies all by myself,” I shouted.
A few moments later, I heard feet hit the floor and softly pad their way to the kitchen.
“You can’t eat all those cookies. Your ass will be burning for days,” she laughed.
She didn’t have to put it so crudely, but she was right. I would have some technical difficulties in the bathroom department if I ate all these cookies by myself. At least she was laughing and smiling again. Thus a win for me.
“Do you want to tell me what’s been going on with you?” I prompted.
She stilled before placing a cookie bake on the baking tray. “Promise not to get mad?”
“That depends, do I have to pay to get anything repaired or replaced?”
“No.” She rolled her eyes, as if that was the most ludacris thing I could say, despite the fact that I have indeed had to pay for things to be replaced and/or repaired because of her shenanigans. But I could remind her of that another day.
