Heart of gold

Round 16: January 2025

Nyah Marlowe is 39, Thomas is 38, Skye is 13, Kyra and Jett are 11 and Lina is 9.

(Iona and Todd are 13.)

Narrated by Skye.

I should have known that mom would interrogate me about Todd after Mrs Lind saw us kissing when we were waiting for the bus after school. I told her that we've kissed a few times but we're not officially dating or anything. I know mom's pretty cool when it comes to boys but it's dad's reaction that I'm worried about.

It's not like I haven't been out with Todd before but it's always been a group of friends going bowling or just hanging out at Generation X. Todd's really nice and sometimes I'd like to hang out with just him.

That same evening after dinner mom and dad gave me the talk. About boys and sex and everything. I could have lived without it although I have a feeling dad didn't exactly enjoy it either. He was working on the assumption that I would start having sex right away so his basic message was that I should wait until I was at least 25. It made mom laugh out loud.

"Thomas, please" mom said and actually rolled her eyes at dad. "She's not going to jump into bed on her first date. We're talking about hanging out with a boy she's been hanging out with for years already."

In the end it wasn't really that bad. No dates on school nights, no boys in my bedroom (well duh), always back home by the curfew (which is 8 pm even on weekends) and helping around the house and staying on top of my school work... yada yada yada. I could have given myself that talk without the complete and utter embarrassment of talking about boys with my dad.

I do help around the house. I always clean my own room and the upstairs bathroom and also make Jett and Kyra and Lina clean up their rooms. Lately I've been making breakfast for them on school days. It's not a big deal, just pour some cereal and milk into bowls and that's it.

I try to do my homework as soon as I get home except on Wednesdays when I have my riding lesson. I've gotten pretty good at riding and I love working with horses but only as a hobby. I still have my sights set on a career as an actress. I wish we get to do plays at school once we get the new school building.

Todd called me one afternoon and asked if I would go out with him to Generation X on Saturday. Of course I said yes. He said we could ride our bikes there after lunch and come back before it got dark. Which would mean that I'd be back home way before my curfew.

Mom made dad stay in the study upstairs when Todd arrived. She said that he would just try his best to scare Todd away. Todd sees mom at school every day but he shook her hand and said it was nice to see her like they've never met. It was kind of sweet though and I could tell mom was impressed.

"We'll be back before it gets dark, I promise" Todd said before we left.

It wasn't much different from the other times we've gone to Generation X except it was just us. We played the arcade games, had burgers and just goofed around.

We were about to leave when Todd took my hand and asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend. I practically flew into his arms and hugged him.

"Yeah, I want to be your girlfriend" I said, grinning as widely as I could.

Of course it would be my luck that Jett happened to wander around just as Todd kissed me good bye before he left.

"Mom! Dad! Skye kissed a boy!" he yelled as soon as Todd stepped out of the door. I love my little brother but sometimes I want to kill him. Dad gave me a very serious look when I walked into the living room but he didn't say anything. Mom just smiled and ruffled Jett's hair.

Mom complains that we kids are growing up so fast and have our own friends and hobbies so we don't always eat at the same time during the week. Nowadays we always have brunch together on Sundays before we're free to do whatever we want.

Iona often comes over or I go see her. She lives nearby - both her mom and her dad's houses are really close to us so it doesn't really matter where she's staying. We often play video games before heading up to my room to gossip.

I'm not exactly shy myself but Iona's even more outgoing. A few weeks ago she kissed my other cousin Jeremy right in the middle of cafeteria at school. He rejected her saying that he's interested in someone else and she just laughed and said it's fine. She keeps bugging me to tell her who it is though. She knows I know because Jeremy and I are friends but there's no way I'm telling her.

Iona's my best friend and I love her but she can be a bit of a blabber mouth sometimes. She swears she wouldn't tell anyone but I'd feel awful if I revealed Jeremy's secrets and he found out.

Notes:

• Title reference: Heart of gold by Neil Young.
• I was debating with myself about whether Nyah and Thomas would let Skye start dating yet. But in the end I thought they'd be ok with it because it's more like a friend thing at this point anyway.
• I talked about having to re-roll my ROS because I lost the info I had in my FlashNote. I decided to leave the events as they were and just re-rolled to assign sims for them so I haven't made any changes to the original ROS post.
• This was Jett and Kyra's last update as kids. Too bad they weren't involved much but I had trouble getting started with this session and update and then Skye took over.