Meeting The Family, Part Two

August 17th, 2017

We didn’t see each other as often once my summer break ended in August to make way for my last year of high school. However, Kenzie was working at my mom’s place which was nearby, making it easy for her to visit once every so often.

My sister had come back from the states and thought it would be fun to meet Kenzie. This led to Kenzie being invited over to join the family for dinner after she finished work on August 17th.

[Kenzie]: Can u pick me up at ur block
[Kenzie]: I don’t think I can enter

I went downstairs to pick her up from the lobby, then we went back to my apartment flat.

My sister opened the door. “Hi! Welcome.”

“Hi! I’m Kenzie. Thanks for inviting me.”

“Yup, I've heard,” said my sister, who was probably trying to hide that she thought Kenzie was short. “You know who I am, yeah?”

After Kenzie and my sister exchanged introductions, Kenzie and I walked into my room, where she sat down and slumped her back against the side of my bed. She seemed pretty tired from work.

Ordinarily, I would be averse to letting outside-clothes touch my bed, but I asked, “Do you wanna sit on the bed?”

“I’m fine, thanks.” She took a few seconds to deflate. “How was your day?”

“School as normal. Just printing mathematics past papers and finding the answers to them online.”

My dad came home later that evening. It was routine for my sister and I to come to the living room and give him a hug when he came back in the evening, so that’s what we did.

Kenzie leaned against a wall watching our tradition unfold. I couldn’t see her while I was hugging my dad, but I felt her gaze upon us.

It felt like a warm, intimate gaze, but maybe it had a tinge of melancholy hiding behind it. I almost felt a little guilty – as if I was showing her something she didn’t have – even though I’m sure she didn’t hold that against me.

Dinner was being prepared in the kitchen. Kenzie went out of her way to help with the cooking. I helped with the cooking just a bit more than I normally would have (Wanna guess why?), then left the kitchen because it got too crowded.

My family made small talk with Kenzie during dinner. The usual “How did you meet?”, “Where are you going for university?”, and “What are you going to study?” kinds of topics. My parents probably thought she was my girlfriend, but thankfully didn’t try to ask about that. It went surprisingly smoothly, in fact. Even after we finished eating, my dad kept chatting with her for a few minutes. Afterwards, Kenzie went to my sister’s room.

I stayed sat at the dining table. The door to my sister’s room was open, so I could see my sister lying on her bed while chatting with Kenzie. Bits and pieces of their conversation were audible to me. They were looking at my sister’s laptop, browsing Reddit and sharing Subreddits. Kenzie was attempting to persuade my sister to see the beauty in the ATBGE Subreddit (Awful Taste But Good Execution).

While I watched them, I took in how grateful I was that my family liked her, and that she got along with my family. Despite the risk of embarrassment or awkward questions from my mom, having her get to know my family satisfied me deeply. I was sharing this significant part of my life with her. I’m not sure if I can put a finger on why exactly it was a nice feeling. Perhaps it’s because I wanted her to understand what was important to me.

She stayed until around 10. After she left, I walked her back to the train station, where we hugged just before parting ways as usual.

We texted a bit more after she got home.

I don't really know why
But it's a nice feeling having you get to know my family

[Kenzie]: Ya it's nice to get to know them

[Kenzie]: To me

Yeah not to me
Only you

[Kenzie]: Ok

They kept saying oh she's very pretty and talking about how you kept trying to help out and my helper even compared you to another one of my friends

[Kenzie]: I'm not too sure how to respond to that
[Kenzie]: But thanks for having me over!
[Kenzie]: Also do u think u have time tonight to Skype a bit more before u go to sleep

Sure

[Kenzie]: Cuz who knows whether you’ll be too busy to call tomorrow right

By the way, we’d started video calling each other a lot because we were seeing each other less often in real life.

August 18th, 2017

My sister walked into my room at about midnight, just when I’d finished calling Kenzie.

“Kenzie’s really nice,” exclaimed my sister, who got onto my bed.

“You’re right. And you’re on my bed.”

“Our bed,” she said as she tucked her feet into my our blanket.

I turned off my phone and put it aside. Despite her sudden invasion, I loved having conversations with her late at night, so I gave her my full attention.

My sister asked, “Were you just calling her?”

“Mhm.”

“You call her more than my boyfriend and I call each other,” she mused while making herself comfortable. “What do you like about her?”

The question caught me off guard a bit.

“Uuuuuhhhhh……”

After a minute of thinking, I accumulated a landslide of responses.

“She’s really kind.

She texts me in the evening to ask me how my day was. It makes me feel like I’m cared for.

Maybe it sounds like a small thing, but I’ll never take that for granted.

She notices little things that I do for her.

She understands me and how much I care about my friends.

She’s great at dealing with kids.

She does little things like making origami rabbits with thank you messages and hiding them in my bag.

She also once folded a little umbrella-shaped bookmark and gave it to me while returning a book that I lent her.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of things.”

“But I think none of those are really reasons.” My sister nodded, as if she liked what I was about to say. I continued, “I could say that about someone I don’t have romantic feelings for. At the end of the day, I doubt I have any concrete reasons for liking Kenzie. It’s not really explainable. In fact, I think it’s better if I don’t have a reason.”

“I agree. It sounds like you’re happy with where you are.” I nodded in response. “When did you stop liking Sachi, again?”

“2015. About 2 years ago.”

“Do you think it’s different from when you liked Sachi?”

“It’s different.” I answered resolutely. “Sachi’s nice, but I never really knew her that well while I liked her, honestly. And it’s not like I would miss her after a day of not seeing her, or spent my nights thinking about the next time I could see her. But this time, though…I mean…” I fidgeted a bit, looked up at my sister, and stopped shy of elaborating precisely. “…Y’know?”

My sister giggled a bit, seeing me like that. “Okay, yeah. I know. It’s been around two months since you started seeing each other pretty much every week, right?”

“Yeah, but since school has started again we probably can’t see each other that often now.”

“Do you know about the concept of a ‘honeymoon phase’?”

“Isn’t that after marriage?”

“No, that’s hand holding.” Upon seeing my confused, innocent face, my sister decided to explain properly. “I know you’re not in that kind of relationship, but I’ll explain it anyway. When two people start dating, it’s usually all fine and dandy at first. For the first two months or so, they meet up every day, they keep on going to new places together, learn a lot about each other, see all of each others' good sides, and stuff like that.”

“And then it gets old?”

“That’s kind of the idea. It won’t be roses and butterflies forever. They’ll start encountering circumstances where they’re at odds with each other. They’ll find each other’s faults.”

“I feel like we’ve had one minor conflict so far, but that was a bit short lived.”

“You’ll probably have more.”

“Huh. We do get along-”

“I don’t mean it in a bad way. But it just happens when two people have high expectations of each other. I just wanna tell you that it’ll happen and it’s normal, even to people who are in an actual relationship, okay?”

I knew my sister meant well, and that she was more experienced than me in this sort of thing, so I accepted what she said. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”

"You're welcome."

After releasing a gaping yawn, my sister got up, and our bed reverted to being my bed. "I'm going to sleep now."

"Good night."

"Night."

Did I mention that I really love my sister? She's really supportive when something important happens in my life. Sorry if I didn't.

Anyway, I went to bed not too long after that.

The honeymoon phase. And what comes after.

How would that even work for someone in my obscure situation?