Everywhere, All At Once

Chapter 16 - Half Crazy

Whenever Kenna decided to visit her mother's church on a given Sunday, it always ended up feeling like a big to-do. Her mother always made sure the pastor saw her and talked to her, probably to make her feel guilty for not coming more often. Her mom was the Queen of Guilt Trips, after all.

She always made sure the rest of the family were all sitting together, including the kids, when Kenna was there too, which usually ended up being kind of fun, but she still saw it for what it was: her mother's way of saying, "See, they all come to church every week, so why can't you?" Of course, her mother did this all with love, and only because she didn't want Kenna's soul to burn in hell for all eternity.

Kenna understood her mother's antics quite well, and other than a heavy eye roll when no one was looking, she took it all in stride. After almost twenty-eight years of her mother's shenanigans, she was quite used to it, actually.

Smiling and shaking hand after hand, Kenna greeted the congregants, many of them old friends of her mother's. As soon as she was able to get a moment alone to breathe, she went out the front doors and walked over to where some of her cousins were standing, waiting for the rest of the family to exit the building.

She'd been a good girl while she was in church and had turned off her phone, but she hadn't talked to Aaron since the evening before, and she kind of really wanted to text him. She turned on her phone and listened idly to her cousins chatter about where they were all going for lunch that afternoon. After loading, two texts popped onto her screen, one of them from Aaron, and she couldn't stop the grin that spread over her face.

"Who's that?" Her cousin Sara asked, sticking her face beside Kenna's to look at her screen, and Kenna resisted the urge to yank the phone away. She hated having people stick their noses in her business, but she was also used to being part of this family which equaled no privacy from each other whatsoever. It could be frustrating, but it admittedly kept them close.

"Ooh, who's Aaron?" Sara asked.

Kenna smirked, and considered giving her cousin the run around, but they usually told each other these kinds of things things anyway. It would be nice, she thought, to have people in her life who knew about Aaron besides Noelle, Nelson, and Jasleen, who had all been sworn to secrecy. The three of them were probably sick of constantly hearing about him, anyway.

"This guy I just started seeing."

"Is he cute?"

"Very," Kenna said, grinning over at Sara.

"Who's very cute?" Kenna's mom, Michelle, asked, sidling up beside them. This time, Kenna shoved her phone into her purse.

"Nobody," Kenna said, but Sara's deliberate smirk and wiggling eyebrows gave the entire thing away.

"You have a new boyfriend?" Her mom continued prying.

Her mother had no boundaries whatsoever. Kenna was positive it was an ethnic thing, not only to Puerto Rican families, but simply non-Anglo families in general. Their families were extremely close, she had no other way to put it. But sometimes too close.

Kenna sighed. Groaned. "Mom," she pleaded, knowing it was pointless.

"You're not gonna tell your own mother about your boyfriend?"

"Ma, you're so dramatic," Kenna whined, but now her cousins were all in the conversation and egging their aunt on.

"Dime, please. I'm your mother. You never tell me any of the juicy stuff, Kenna."

Kenna sighed again and spat out, "His name is Aaron, yes he's cute, and I've only been seeing him for like three weeks. That's it."

"Are we gonna get to meet him?" One of her other cousins, Angela, asked, taking over the interrogation.