63

“Are you not feeling well, honey? You have barely touched your food.” My mom breaks my daydreamy gaze at the half-finished meal I was pushing around with my fork, and I sit up in guilty response. Clearing my throat and pasting on a brighter, less zoned-out expression. I had been lost in my mind as everything that happened today caught up with me. I feel like I’m in the twilight zone.

“What, um no…I’m just tired and not that hungry.” I try not to glance to my left where Dane is sitting, seeing as he decided to join us for dinner tonight after we spent an hour making out on the couch before anyone came home. The guilt and awkwardness in me are strong, and I’m not convinced my mom cannot see a change in me or suspect my chapped lips were not from forgetting lip balm like I told her.

I guess I am partly sitting here like a zombie because I’m trying to adjust to this bare-faced lie of an existence now we are all together. When she got home, I had to lie to her to explain my disheveled appe