Broken Glass, Broken Hearts part 93

We ate on the floor, because the kitchen table was "still under reconstruction", in Linda's words. I had officially learned that Tyler's mom's name was Linda, and that she was music supervisor for commercials. So, that song that you loved in that commercial that was kind of lame but made better by the song? She chose that song. Lykke Li played softly over her speakers as we ate. We all talked and laughed as if we had been friends for years, and we were just having a reunion. Everything felt really comfortable, like I was as much a part of this family as Tyler was. "So what kind of job do you want, Angela?" Linda asked me. I smiled and shrugged, "I'm not sure. Maybe a teacher. I'd kind of like to be a college professor. I mean, I love kids, but I think I'd prefer to teach kids that can teach me, too. I mean, not that younger kids can't, but...I don't know. I feel like people are most influenced by their college professors. I'd like to be influential, you know?" Linda smiled and nodded and Tyler smiled at me, too, resting his chin in his fist. "Personally, I think my teacher that was my biggest influence was my kindergarden teacher. She was a real talent." I laughed, and Tyler shook his head with a little grin, but then Linda smiled and said, "But then again, I'm not really much help in that area, since I didn't go to college." I rose an eyebrow and cleared my throat, "So, um, what did you want to be when you were our age, Linda?" It was weird feeling so comfortable calling an adult by her first name, especially a woman who I'd really only known for about an hour. Linda laughed, "Oh, I'd never really planned any sort of plan for the future. I guess I'd just always kind of figured I'd die young, in some tragically beautiful way." She shook her head and smiled at me, but her smile fell, and I guessed my face must have gone blank. I felt like my body had just stopped- like all my organs had just shut down momentarily. Tyler looked over at me and then at his mom. I cleared my throat and replied quickly, before Tyler could start to wonder whether it was his place to tell his mom my secrets, "My sister passed away recently. Twin sister, so very young." Linda scrunched up her eyebrows, "Oh dear. I'm very sorry. How did she go?" I shook my head, "A baseball shattered our window. Her heart was impaled by the glass." Linda's eyes widened, "And what sort of girl was she?" I looked down at my plate, "Very energetic. Always happy. She wore a lot of bright colors." There was so much more I could say about her, so much more to her than this, but it seemed to me like this was what she would've wanted me to describe her to people as. "Ah," Linda said, "And what job did she want?" I looked up at her now. I hadn't exactly been expecting that question, to say the least. "Um," I said, and I couldn't help but smile as I remembered, "She used to tell me she wanted to be a street performer. Just dress up in a bunch of bizarre clothes, put a top hat on the sidewalk, and dance badly to 80's music. She said people would feel so bad for her that she's make a good profit." I laughed a bit. Dustin always did have a sense of humor. Linda smiled, "Well then," she said, "I am satisfied. It seems she went just the way she would have wanted to." I rose an eyebrow at her, "What?" Linda smiled and nodded, "She sounds like the kind of girl who would have wanted to go dramatically. And that story you've just told me, that's a very good one. She would have been pleased." I thought about that for a moment. Then I laughed a bit, "Yea," I said, "I guess you're right." Tyler leaned over to me while everyone else was caught up in conversation and said, "She did agree that dying would be an awfully big adventure, didn't she?" I smiled at him and nodded.

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