Life With A Stepmom

Hanna

Homework would have been better than cleaning, but I can't tell her the truth now. The kitchen was a mess. It didn't take Victoria and me very long to clean the kitchen, but that became just the beginning of our cleaning. After we finished, Rose came in to inspect our cleaning. I don't know how Victoria can stand Rose, but at the same time I do.

I'm afraid that cleaning is going to become normal until I stop getting into trouble. I have noticed how much Rose loves Victoria just by watching them today. I don't know Rose very well, but I hope that I'll get to have as good of a relationship with Rose as Victoria does. I knew what I needed to do to help my relationship with Rose, or at least make it look like I cared.

"Rose, can I talk to you, in private?"

"Of course, let's go up to your room and talk."

This was not going to be easy, I was already getting butterflies in my stomach just thinking about what I was going to say. We both sat down on my bed and she turned my head to face her.

"Go on, whatever you have to say must be really important."

"I lied to you about not having homework earlier. I didn't want you forcing me to do it, so I lied about having any."

"I know."

"What do you mean you know?"

"Do you think I believed what you had said earlier? I knew you had homework, I was just waiting for you to tell me that you did. Although you didn't tell me when I asked you, I am proud that you eventually told me the truth."

"I'm sorry Rose, having someone else in my life is a big adjustment for me. I hope that you'll forgive me, I understand that I am probably in more trouble because I didn't tell the truth."

"Rose, you already learned your lesson, you confided in me and told me the truth. I'm glad that you told me when you did because you would have been in more trouble if you had gone to school tomorrow with no homework completed. Go sit at your desk, and I'll help you with your homework. I need to go tell Victoria to start cooking dinner, and then I will be right back up to help you with your homework."

That turned out better than I expected it to, but it wasn't easy to tell her the truth. It was almost as if she was proud of me like I was her own daughter confessing to her. I don't know what she'll tell dad when he gets home, but I hope I don't get yelled at by him. I started right away on my homework, I didn't want to be on anyone's bad side. All I have to do is make it seem like I am complying to what she says.

Rose came back up fifteen minutes later. She said that she and I weren't going to eat dinner until we finished my homework together. It took us a few hours to finish all of my homework, she even helped me write my essay for her class.

The help was nice, but I still didn't like her very much. I was going to have to get better at lying through my teeth.

"Hey Rose, thanks for helping me with all of my homework, I couldn't have finished it without you."

"Just remember to do homework on time from now on so it won't happen again."

"Rose, can what happened today just stay between us?"

"I'm afraid your father already knows what happened today."

"Oh. Okay."

Crap. Maybe he won't be too mad. There's nothing I can do about that now.