Chapter 1: Mother’s younger sister

I lay on my bed, hands behind my head resting on my pillow, kicking one knee back and forth, frowning all the while. I didn’t see how this was fair. Give up my room? To someone I’d never met and knew pretty much nothing about? This sucked. Over the years, my parents had told me so damned little about my aunt that I wasn’t even sure of her name.

I mulled over what I did know about her- she was my mother’s younger sister. They’d never really talked about her because apparently my grandmother moved with my aunt to Europe after she’d been abused by my grandfather. Mom was already married to my dad, so it wasn’t directly affecting her and to be honest, I’d assumed she didn’t really care, since I was eighteen now and the matter had come up maybe once in my entire life before all this.

What was all this? Well, apparently my grandmother had died. That being said, my aunt was looking to return to ‘the colonies’ and make a new life here, with whatever inheritance she’d received. In a totally unexpected show of familial devotion, probably at the behest of my dad, mom had insisted that he sister come and live with us until she got herself established and found her own place.

Now this might have not bothered me so much, since I’m rather chill about being around people I don’t know, but it was somehow decided, without my consent, that my aunt Allie would be commandeering my room. Me? Well, I was young and adaptable so I could make do in the rec room in our basement.

Saying I was pissed was a minor understatement and I made sure both my parents knew it. Hence, I was brooding in my room, even though we were scheduled to go pick her up from the airport less than an hour from now.

“Alex?” my dad called cheerfully from downstairs. “Time to go, get the head out!”

I said nothing, continuing to lay on my bed, scowling at the ceiling.

“ALEXANDER ORION DAYRAVEN!” my mother thundered from downstairs, clearly fed up with me being obstreperous about this issue. “Get your sorry behind down here or I’ll drag you down by your uvula!”

I froze. Even for her she sounded pissed.

“Don’t make me come up there!”

I got my generally chill nature from my dad, whereas I got my stubborn streak from mom. Problem was, most people assumed I blended those two traits into passive-aggressiveness. I could see at moments like this why people would think that, but I like to believe they’re wrong.

Either way, pissing mom off was a bad idea. Guess I was stuck and just had to live with it.

I sighed and trudged downstairs, doing my best to look beshat upon, if no longer cantankerous. My dad chuckled and ruffled my hair, something he could do in spite of my imposing physique, because he was even bigger than me.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said as we headed out to the van. “For all you know, Allie’ll only be here a week or so before you can reclaim your man cave. Is being that nice to a long-lost family member really all that horrific?”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be if I’d been consulted and my opinion asked for,” I groused as we pulled out of the driveway. “But, as you may have noticed, no one did. I got back from swimming practice and bam, you two tell me that I’m giving up my room to a relative you know nothing about.”

“She’s your aunt, what’s there to know?” dad said as he drove.

“That’s all I know about her,” I replied in as restrained a voice as I could manage. “Her name is Allie. She’s mom’s younger sister. She’s moving back here after living in Europe. That’s what I know. You have to admit, it’s pretty scant information.”