#same old same sold

[ratantics]

[fixedwatch]

@stolenfates ❧ Dιɳα

❝ How was the barn dance, kid ? ❞  Maya skipped the celebration. She offered to look after Benji so Maria & Tommy could enjoy the night out as a proper date. She hadn't been a mother in years, but once laced into her being it never faded. Those without children still had motherly instincts – Dina & Ellie certainly did. It was obvious in how they treated the kids around Jackson. Always kind, despite all the obstacles and events to turn them overwise. Teen had a habit of staying out late. Dina wasn't home yet when Maya left Benji with his early-to-return parents. She waited in the cold, leaning against the porch's beam at the top of the steps, arms and ankles crossed. Ellie had no doubt trudged home to give Joel the silent treatment; some Maya did as a moody teenager too. Since Dina didn't live far from the Tommy's, Maya figured she'd take a minute to see if Dina was alright. From what others mentioned on their walks back from the barn, Ellie wasn't thankful for Joel's intervention. 

❝ He's always been like that," she straightened her stance and scuffed the toe of a worn boot against the porch's wooden boards. ❝ Well, I guess shoving guys in barns, anyways. We went square dancing once – ❞ , she paused to smile at the absurdity of the memory, ❝ and he clocked a guy in the jaw for spilling his beer down my shirt.❞ She shrugged, as if to say the man could be taken out of Austin, but not Austin out of the man. ❝ We high-tailed it out of there before his dad's unit showed up.❞ Ellie changed Joel in wonderful ways, so had his life here, but as the saying went : if you're raised with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house. Joel was no Javier and certainly not Javier's father.  ❝ Anyways . . . not to make excuses for him or anything . . . you okay? ❞