welcome to our home

It was a nice house. The walls were covered in family photos, people I didn't know, people I thought I recognized, people I thought of asking about. There were odd and vaguely decorations in the hall that probably had some emotional significance once, but mostly I think they'd become part of the house. Mostly they were in the corridors that didn't get used much, and I wondered if it was the creepy decor that made them that way.

It was a bit of a mess, but probably cleaner than my apartment had ever been. They wanted to make me feel welcome, though, and they felt inadequate for it. But that's probably me. I'm just a mirror, a chameleon, and they saw a nice boy with a polite smile, someone respectful, who valued hard work, who listened. Someone they wanted to stick around, perhaps, because maybe they though their daughter needed more nice boys in her life. If they wanted to believe that was the case and I was one of them, I wasn't going to stop them.

They tried a fairly simple dish, but he overcooked the steak tips and the rest of the meal was somewhat bland. They bickered quietly--not constantly, but enough. They chided their daughter when she argued or disagreed. When we'd finished eating I thanked them and their daughter took me downstairs, into her room, which was chaotic and unlike the rest of the house, as rooms so often are. We were there for the rest of the evening. It was far from perfect, but it was unquestionably hers.