Selene yawned as she sat across from her father with Zoë next to her.
Sundays had no dress code, everyone wore their comfortable clothes. Even her dad ditched the suit for some sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt.
Father, daughter Sundays had been a tradition since Selene was born. For the first few years of her life until her mother left, they were spent with her, usually having breakfast at home and playing games. After her mother had left, they spent the morning grocery shopping together and when her father had met Carter, they spent it at iHop grabbing breakfast at twelve thirty PM every week while Carter headed to church and then did some grocery shopping.
She never quite understood why Carter went to church, supporting a God who everyone claimed hated him for the person he loved. Though she was baptised, she couldn't remember ever being part of any religion.
Next to her, Zoë yawned and her father glanced at her over his stack of pancakes, and the various breakfast foods that littered their table, silently asking the girls what time they had gone to sleep.
After finishing another episode, they had been unable to resist seeing what Declan had sent.
He had sent both a message and a picture and they compromised on opening the picture only.
Selene had braced herself as she opened it, while Zoë leaned closer to the phone and they both saw little Declan very obvious and fully clothed in grey sweatpants with one of Declan's hands holding him through the fabric.
She had pretended to gag while Zoë proclaimed up and down that he was a 'fucking bastard'. After, they were forced to watch one more episode to erase the image from their minds before falling asleep at well past three in the morning.
She shrugged in response to her father, cutting into her French toast and picking up a strawberry and a banana slice with it.
She and her father usually pigged out on Sundays, buying most items on the menu (pancakes, waffles, French toast, crepes, omelettes, sausages, scrambled eggs, hash browns, slices of buttered toast and bacon along with some hot drinks) and having Zoë with them just made it worse. They had two of almost everything, some items they had three of.
With a small sigh, Selene gave up trying to calculate how much weight each bite would cause her to gain. The food tasted too good even when she felt the waistband of her tights stretch around her. The meal was almost over anyways, they had been there for well over an hour, most plates empty and the ones left were slightly cold though no one seemed to mind.
Her father swallowed the last of his double blueberry pancakes and wiped his mouth with a napkin.
"Have you thought about university yet Zoë?" he asked.
She quickly swallowed, nodding quickly. "I'm still waiting to hear back but I have hope," she said. "Just feel kind of bad if I have to leave my parents."
Zoë had a whole plan. She was going to go to Ryerson all the way across the country in Toronto, room with Selene, become an architect and work under people until she could start her own company then get married and have exactly four kids. The only flaw in that plan was that she had been put on the waiting list for Ryerson and Selene had already gotten her acceptance letter. They didn't really talk about that fact.
Her dad shrugged, raising his shoulders up and down as he took a sip of his coffee before making a face as it had gone cold. "It's a part of life for us parents, not the most pleasurable but still we knew it would come one day." He turned to his daughter who instantly pretended to be interested in the last piece of her crepe. "How about you? Any thought into what you want to be?"
She shook her head. She had things that had captured her interestâguitar, piano, drama class, watercolour painting, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, psychologyâbut she either didn't master it or couldn't imagine doing it for the rest of her life.
Her dad gave her a look and she knew it wasn't because he was disappointedâhe said he was never disappointed as long as she was happy and wasn't harming herself or othersâbut that he was worried.
April started in less than two weeks then after that May, then June then graduation at the end of the month. As far as he was concerned, Selene was already graduating university.
Though Zoë was still anticipating her third acceptance letter, she had gotten four in the form of emails for early admission back in December.
"There's only a month left to respond," he said. "So you'll have to reply soon."
She nodded. "I know."
"They'll take away your place if you don't respond."
"No they won't," she said, looking at her father with an eyebrow raised.
He rolled his eyes and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. "I have no jurisdiction over university admissions and even if I did, I wouldn't pull strings so you could get in. I'm not that kind of person. You got in because you're smart and you have something they want."
Zoë spoke up, "You've gotten principal award like three years in a row."
At their school, the principal's award was given to the top ten students in each grade with the highest averages. She had gotten it her grade nine, ten and eleven year along with honour roll awards in the same years. And though she would admit she had pretty good gradesânone of them were below an eighty-eight percentâshe couldn't deny the fact that there was nothing extraordinary about her. She wasn't part of any clubs at her school nor any sport sans for grade nine when she had been on the track team so she could lose ten pounds.
"It's just hard to pick when I don't know what the eff to do," she said.
Her dad nodded in understanding as he paid the bill.
After relaxing in the booth for several moments, they all got up and headed out of the iHop.
"I'll see you at home?" her dad asked.
She and Zoë nodded in response. "Just going to the mall for a bit," she said. "We'll be home in a couple of hours."
He pressed the button on his key fob to unlock his car.
Though the parking lot was mostly empty now, when they had arrived it was full causing Selene and him to park on opposite sides of the lot.
"Love you," he said, taking a step towards his vehicle.
"Love you too," she replied.
"Be safe, girls," he called as he walked away.
"We'll try," she called back and Zoë called out an, "okay."
The girls turned and headed for Selene's Maserati.
Despite breakfast's lack of dress code, they both had dressed so that they wouldn't look like complete homeless people lest they see someone they knew. She wore black tights with a burgundy tank top and beige cardigan to cover her arms along with black ankle boots and her hair flowing behind her in curls.
Zoë wore a mauve short sleeve shirt that was distressed in several places, dark-washed jeans, and black platform ankle boots. Her hair was pin straight and she wore various accessories of gold rings and a choker under a silver necklace with a single bolt as a pendant.
As Selene unlocked her car and started it she wondered how they had managed to maintain a friendship.
They were such opposites. Zoë was more grunge like in her clothing; everything she wore was ripped or distressed in some way, while she was more conservative. She liked outfits that were simple with little to no accessories and some type of jacket to cover her arms. Zoë was loud, often the speaker of them both with many friends while Selene preferred to be alone with her bed and her Netflix. Zoë was a firework of energy, vibrant and leaving a trail of swear words while Selene could barely swear without wincing because it didn't feel right.
They arrived at the mall quickly, it was packed so they were able to browse the shops in peace, picking up outfits for Selene to try on.
She had to stop Zoë when her calculations added up to little over half a thousand dollars used on her debit card.
She didn't even like half of the clothes, none of the revealing outfits were her style and some of them she didn't feel comfortable in, knowing the mirrors in the shops were deceiving her into looking more petite than she was and it didn't help when she couldn't zip up a dress that would normally fit her.
The whole ordeal had left her physically and mentally tired as she dragged shopping bags to her car while Zoë skipped beside her. She had bought less than a hundred dollars on herself and carried no more than two bags on her wrists.
She brought the engine to life and switched the radio to a classical music station to sooth the headache in her temples. Her mother had played classical music to her in the wombâsomething about it helping with intelligenceâbut now Selene just used it as a stress reliever. It played in the background when she did homework or blasted in her ears when she was on the verge of a panic attack.
"That was fun," Zoë said.
"I'm never going to a mall again. I'm buying all my shit online or having it tailored."
"You okay?" Zoë asked softly.
She nodded. "I'm fine," she said, thinking about the large breakfast she had eaten and the ice cream she had stuffed down the day before.
Zoë rubbed her arm emphatically. "Let's just go home, okay."
She put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking spot.
»
"So what do I need to know about Declan for tomorrow?" Selene asked.
Zoë had long since gone home to let Selene relax and do the homework she hadn't completed due to the weekend's events.
They now talked through FaceTime, Zoë laying in her pale yellow bed sheets, her pink hair up in a ponytail while Selene attempted to peel off her face mask in front of her bathroom mirror.
Zoë went quiet as she thought.
"He drives a Lambo, acts like your typical rich boy," she started as Selene peeled off the part of the mask around her chin, wincing slightly. "His dad's a businessman, his mom is a fashion designer but she's not really in the picture. He has five siblings, and you know his friends, you've probably seen them around. He's mixed of Scottish, Hispanic and less than a quarter Native. His group sits out by the quad, so you're going to have to find somewhere to sit around there. I obviously can't sit with you."
She pulled off the last of the face mask with a small yelp.
"I've gotta go to bed," Zoë said.
"Is there anything else I need to know?" she asked.
Zoë shrugged. "Wear a choker, he loves chokers. And ditch the cardigan, girl, you look beautiful."
"Thanks," she responded. It was an automatic response but she didn't really take it in. "Goodnight."
"G'night," Zoë responded, and in the same breath, "Love you, you'll do great."
"Love you too," she said and Zoë hung up.
Tomorrow would be a mission but she would hopefully be right for it.
She stared at herself in the mirror, pieces of the face mask still stuck on her pale skin. "You can do this," she told herself. "Selene X."
She smiled at her reflection before turning off the light and heading to bed.