"I told you I had a gun," Was the statement that drove Marcus and I apart like someone had shocked us with an electrical socket. I was so taken aback that my head hit against Marcus's mouth, which made his lip split open and begin to bleed.

"Ow," Marcus muttered in response.

"Dad!" I chastised, my cheeks blazing as my gaze frantically switched between my dad who was now dressed in loose pajama pants and a fluffy robe adorned with lab coats and tester tubes on it, to Marcus, holding his lip and looking sheepishly at my dad.

"Get inside you two lovebirds before I show you my gun collection," He grunted, waiting for me to walk ahead of him.

"I believe you th-aid it wa-th a knife collec-thion," Marcus lisped pathetically, still holding his lip.

My dad glared at him before shouting, "I said what I said!" And stomped his way ahead of us and back inside.

We followed suit, entering back into the house and I couldn't possibly take the awkwardness of sitting down with Marcus after my dad had seen us making out, so I ran to the kitchen and placed a few of the cookies that my mom had just pulled out of the oven into a tupperware (because she would never have let him leave without eating it with or without us).

My mom was probably looking through our old video collection as a way to top off the evening.

I sprinted back into the foyer and handed Marcus the container. "Thanks for coming, Marcus." I stated sweetly without making eye contact. I saw his hand fall from his split lip as he gingerly gripped the container in one hand.

"Thanks for having me, all of you," Came his somber reply.

My mom's head peaked from around the corner on top of the stairs, "Are you leaving so soon? I was just finding Mabel's teenage pictures!" Thank. God.

Marcus smiled gently at my mom as she walked down the stairs, "I would love to see them another time. Thank you so much for dinner and for such a nice evening."

He waited for a moment and I didn't know if it was because he was waiting for me for something, but I couldn't even look at him out of sheer and utter embarrassment. He probably thought I was so immature. My dad was standing right there.

"See you, Mabel," He murmured, whistling for Marco who licked my hand before scampering his way out after his father.

I turned back to my parents, my emotions feeling so overwhelming at this point. My mom piped up with "I hope you didn't use the plastic Tupperware, Mabel. I only use that for compost. It has carcinogens in it!"

She was thinking about plastic Tupperware? I was having the most awkward encounter of my life and I lived through Watergate (Re watergate: I'm still going through the repression process). "Neither of you can be normal for a single evening!" I wailed in despair as I ran up the staircase to my old room. I shut the door and sat on my bed, wishing I had more answers than I did.

This isn't what normal twenty one year olds feel like. I'm supposed to be mature and driven like Connie, or confident and brimming with intelligence like Amanda. I just felt lost and constantly questioning my dumb choices.

A knock on the door shook me out of my reverie as my mom opened the door and shut it behind her. "Can I come in?" She asked tentatively, waiting by the exit.

I looked at her, "Yes. I'm sorry about what I said."

"Want to talk about it?" She asked as she sat next to me on my bed, folding her hands in her lap. This was her 'figure things out' pose.

I sighed as I tugged my sleeves over my hands. "I'm just feeling a little lost, I guess. I'm constantly second guessing everything and everyone, in a desperate attempt to blend in. And then I can't help but wonder, why didn't you guys just give me a normal education and a normal social life so that I could have avoided all of these barriers?"

My mom tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. "Mabel, when you came out of the womb-"

"Gross," I laughed weakly.

My mom smiled, "You were purple. Quite literally. The umbilical cord was wrapped around your tiny neck and you couldn't breathe. For one minute I thought I had lost the most precious gift that I have ever been given in my life. So your dad and I lived everyday with that first one in mind. We wanted to give you the best opportunities, the most safety, and a pretty stellar education if I do say so myself. I'm sorry if you feel like you've missed out on things, but I think you need to remember that you're Mabel. You're you no matter the education or the upbringing or the social life."

She sighed before clasping her hands again, "No one has everything figured out, sweetheart. We did the best with what we had and so does every other living person. No one is all put together, or all confident, or all intelligent. You just work with who you are."

I just stared at her because all this time I had felt like she had held me back from so much in my life. I felt like I had missed out on so much. But maybe I would have still been awkward me even with the social get togethers and the typical upbringing. I thought back to what Marcus had said and I realized I had a lot to be thankful for. A lot that I didn't have a reason to be bitter about. And suddenly, I felt ashamed of myself.

"Marcus seems like a really nice young man," My mom stated quietly, almost reading my mind about the guy currently occupying my thoughts.

I nodded, "He is. Dad found us making out outside," I admitted.

My mom chuckled, "He's the worst."

"He's alright," I laughed.

My mom kissed my head before getting up and leaving my room. I collapsed backward onto my pillows just as my phone buzzed. I picked it up, holding it above my face.

Amanda: SOS. We need a collective intervention. Now, I know I'm not the one who normally initiates interventions, which means that you are both required to attend without rebuttals. I suggest we meet tomorrow at Moo La La café and by suggest I mean that's where we're meeting up. Get out of your heads girlies (again, I realize this is ironic coming from me and I take no pleasure in taking up this role that you two have so haphazardly tossed aside but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do)

Moments later, Connie replied and I felt my heart lurch at seeing her name. I remembered all the unanswered texts she had sent and all the calls I had let slip to voicemail.

Connie: Intervention accepted

Maybe Connie didn't have everything figured out like I thought she did. Maybe she was just as flustered by guys or by what she was going to do in life. Maybe I had conjured such a perfect image of my friends that I didn't stop to actually look at them and hear what they were trying to tell me. Because I'm pretty sure if I wasn't so stubbornly clinging onto this idea that they were confident and sure of themselves and trudging through life knowing full well where they were going, I'd have seen their struggles for what they truly were - just as ever present as mine were.

I really was an idiot.

Mabel: Intervention accepted