The Road Trip

Chapter 36
The Road Trip, Part 36

Part 36

It didn’t take long to figure out why Kate wanted one last moment alone with me. Just like the last few times, she just took the opportunity to remind me about all the things we had already gone over. My age. My attitude. Nothing new, and I made a point to give her my brightest smile and girliest giggle near the end of the explanation. As in, ‘Yeah. I get it.’ We didn’t need to keep going over the same thing. 

Kate just pinched my cheek and gave me a wink. Making it seem like we were in this together, despite how I was only going along with it because it felt like I needed to. “You are the cutest little sister,” she gushed. Then she took my hand and tugged me towards the entrance, “Come on, Annie!”

By the time we made it inside, the twins were already waiting with mini golf clubs and a score card. They gave Kate a red ball and matching club they had picked out to match her hair, and I was handed a pink set since they had been told it was my favorite color earlier.  As much as I hated the childish outfit my sister had stuck me in, I still would have been happy with blue equipment to go with it. At least, that’s what younger me would have done at a place like this. 

Instead, I just had to smile and politely thank the twins for the girly choice. For paying as well, when Kate had asked how much we owed. We were guests, and family, and they didn’t mind at all. Of course, Kate said we’d figure out a way to make it up to them anyway. Great. 

The four of us walked together to the first hole a few yards from the outdoor sign-up desk, and my sister was quick to suggest that the youngest should go first. Our cousins happily agreed. “Go on, Annie!” Lilah said.

Inwardly sighing to myself, but pushing a smile onto my face nonetheless, I stepped up to the first tee. It was going to be a long eighteen holes. Dropping the pink ball by my feet to avoid having to bend over with the awkward bulk I was still dealing with, I used the club to set the ball where I wanted it. However, the pull-ups ended up being a problem anyway. When I bent at the knees and positioned my body to take my first swing, the mess sagging between my thighs shifted just enough to make me blush and worry that the twins might notice something. Swinging without even thinking, I snapped myself back into a standing position and my cheeks darkened as the full pull-ups shifted again.

The first hole was a short one, probably designed to be a warm-up, and my golf ball sped to the end and popped out of the green area entirely when it hit the small border at the end. “Oh my God!” I exclaimed. Knowing full well that my blush would be noticeable, I thought quickly and tried to shift it towards embarrassment about something besides my mortifying underwear situation. “I’m, like, so bad!”

“It’s okay, little sis,” Kate said. A flicker of a smirk appeared on her face, but she managed to soften it to more of a smile by the time the other two looked her way. “We’ll give you a pass on that one. Go get your ball; you can try again!”

This time, I didn’t have a choice. After going to find the pink ball that had rolled farther away than I would have liked, I decided that bending was too much of a risk in terms of the shortalls hugging the doubled up pull-ups and giving away what I was wearing. Instead, I squatted down and winced at the uncomfortable sensations that were caused both as I lowered myself and then as I stood back up. God, and that was going to happen almost twenty more times throughout the course. 

Making sure to plaster the fake smile back on my face before I turned around, I went back to the girls at the starting area who had each taken a swing in my absence. Good. The quicker this game went, the better. “Here, Annie,” Kate said, “Let me show you.” As I set myself back up for another start, she came over and positioned herself behind me. I flinched right away, but she smoothly placed her hands on my shoulders and muttered just above a whisper that I was supposed to behave. In this case, clearly that meant letting her be a ‘helpful’ older sister. Like we were a cutesy couple, she slid her hands down my arms and guided my hands into a proper grip. “Now, this is how you putt,” she said, this time loudly enough for the twins to be included in the conversation, “Nice and easy. Like this.” She had us slightly wind the club back together, then guided it forward for a gentle swing. “Now thank me like a good little girl,” she whispered, once again just for me.

Annoyingly enough, the pink ball actually landed mere inches from the hole. As Kate stepped back, I smiled and giggled. “Thanks, sis!” I went to brush back my hair out of awkwardness, only to be reminded that it was braided into those stupid pigtails. Lowering my hand and feeling the blush creep back in, I asked, “Like, now what?”

“You go again, Annie,” Luna said, “Whoever’s closest to the hole.”

Thankfully, Kate didn’t insist on another lesson. Even with my nervousness about the golf stance potentially showing off my padded rear, I managed to succeed in not missing. My sister and cousins cheered for me, and it was all I could do to give them a meek smile as I continued the twelve year old charade. 

They counted it as two strokes for me, repeating how my first one was just a practice swing. Honestly, I didn’t care. Though a lower score meant being done more quickly, I wasn’t really in the competing mood. 

We continued to the second hole after the other girls sunk their golf balls, and I gradually found a rhythm that kept Kate off my back. Whenever I did well, I’d smile and giggle and act overly cute in an effort to show her that I was doing my best to play the role. On top of that, there was the quota she had imposed on me. I was supposed to say ‘like’ at least five hundred times before we got back to the house, and failing to do so would easily give her an excuse to delay a much needed change. But that was a LOT of filler. I tried to keep track as we played, but just getting halfway to that insane number was going to be difficult. 

“Hey, Lilah? Like, who’s winning?” I asked after the ninth hole. “I mean, like, is it close?” While I still didn’t care about the score, it was really getting to the point where I had to speak up in order to keep adding to the count. 

Unsurprisingly, I was losing. Even with a few more grace points they allowed me here and there, as apparently this wasn’t my best sport, I had a hidden handicap that kept me from standing and swinging properly. On top of that, it also wasn’t the most fun to walk around in sagging underwear, but I couldn’t exactly complain. The twins didn’t know, and Kate wouldn’t care. All I could do was pout a little bit about the score, throw in a few more immature filler words, and continue the tween act during the second half of the game. 

By the time we wrapped up the eighteenth hole, a few of the recent habits had taken more than the repetition at the house had made them stick. My gut reaction to anyone talking to me, including the desk girl afterwards, was to smile and include ‘like’ somewhere in the first sentence I spoke. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was well aware that I had definitely been more mature than this when I really was in middle school, but I was in too deep to shift gears at this point. Bubbly little Annie was the only one who could get me out of the mess I had let myself get into. 

And she was doing a good job, it seemed. 

Once Kate had secured me back in the car seat, along with another one of those friendly winks that implied we were on the same team after everything she had put me through, she hopped in the opposite seat and spoke up after Lilah started the car. “Hey, can we stop by a pharmacy on the way home?” she asked. 

Briefly turning to me with a knowing smile before focusing her attention up front, Kate said, “Annie and I have a thing or two to take care of.”

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