Life Hacks/Just go with it (Home)

Well, it shouldn’t seem that strange to them, you ought to be able to just wing it here. You are just standing up behind a chair… an extra chair that wasn’t there before. Great, how is THAT one going to get explained?

“What are you doing?” Brittany says, “everyone’s here, mom’s not going to suddenly get here this early.”

“Uh… oh, yeah.” You groan, blushing a bit at the likely oddity of the situation in their minds as you take your seat. Oh well, people have so-called “brain farts” all the time. They shouldn’t think any less of you for this. You decide not to worry about it and take your seat and start eating. The sound of clanking silverware fills the room as people begin eating their soup, and you hear the sound of crunching and gulping as your family members all eat their food. It seems so loud now to your enhanced ears. You can pick out the sounds of each and every one of them as they go through every single step in the process of masticating their meal. As interesting as this is, it is really all a little bit disgusting as you mentally envision the state of their food in their mouths as they consume it, and that just makes it all the more strange as you begin participating in the same activities. Eventually, you wind up having to tune it all out in order to eat without being disgusted by the mere act of consuming food. Fortunately though, it seems quite easy for you to push this aside and you begin filling your belly.

“He Xander,” Bastian says, “guess what? Earlier, Angel was bleeding out of her privates!”

“Bastian!” Brittany snaps at him. “We don’t talk about that at the dinner table!” She scolds, “besides, that’s something private for a girl, you shouldn’t go telling people about that.”

“Mmm..” he groans, “but it’s weird!” He goes on, “Brittany said it was called her period.” He says to you. “How do girls just start bleeding out of their privates like that?”

“I’ll explain it to you later,” Brittany says, “right now, let’s just finish eating, Ok?”

“Yeah,” you add diplomatically, “this is probably not the best time to talk about this. You’re making all the girls uncomfortable.” What you said was most certainly true. Every single one of them seemed to be giving off some form or other of uncomfortable reaction. Angel was embarrassed, Roni seemed freaked out, probably wondering about when she is going to start bleeding now, and Brittany was obviously feeling some vicarious empathetic embarrassment for Angel’s sake. As for Charity, she probably had the least pronounced reaction. Actually, she seemed to be watching you more than anything. You feel like somehow she is taking in and appraising your every action now, likely a result of her new found need to re-asses who her twin brother even is, and this oddly enough seems to be proving itself a formative moment toward that.

“Sorry about that,” Brittany sighs, “me and him were talking when Angel came up to me to tell me she had her first… yeah...” you can see her neck bulge with the “cringe muscles” as she gestures uncomfortably in a general downward direction on her own body, likely unconscious of the fact she had even made the hand gesture as she was just trying to get the message across without saying it.

“Why? What happened?” Roni asks. “Why were Angel’s privates bleeding?” Well, great. It looks like this has completely become the topic of lunch conversation despite yours and Brittany’s best efforts to shut it down. Brittany visibly cringes for a moment as she realizes the implications of this question, there will be no way to avoid or shut down this topic now that the one who is genuinely ignorant and scared and for whom the subject sort of matters has started in on it.

What do you do?

• Explain it to her
• Let Brittany handle it
• Try to quickly calm her fears so this can be tabled for later

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