(TCXDR) Chapter 8: The Older Sister

Okay, this chapter will also have different dynamics! It’ll have a ton of surprises indeed! Enjoy! 😀

Chapter 8: The Older Sister

Some time after Xim leaves, Shiew gets a surprise…

Shiew Irizarry’s POV

After Xim leaves I feel sad. I think she feels sad, too, but what can I do? My parents don’t approve of her, and she doesn’t like my parents for that reason. And I’m being controlled by my parents, not Xim so I really have no choice but to listen to them.

After hearing from Xim about her real situation and the lies that my parents told me, it made me wonder why they didn’t want me to be with her? Did they think there something seriously off about her? If so, what would it be? I didn’t see any flaws in her, but I did see she was always keen on covering up her eyes. And her lips seem to be always red for some reason.

That didn’t matter a lot to me, but they were just questions that went around in my head. Xim would be a perfectly normal girl if you got rid of those irrelevant factors. Why my parents are paying attention to this I have no idea. They don’t care a crap what I do anyway. How they even found out about my old friend is beyond me.

Xim and I have even gone on to share our personal details. Okay, I don’t know her birthday, and she probably doesn’t know mine, but she can get a good estimate of it since I said twelve years and four months old, which would be in May or June. If only we had phones so we can talk all day long about everything.

I’m just watching a werewolf movie right now. Boring. I’ve watched this quite many times before that I already know exactly what events are going to happen at the exact time. My parents make me watch these movies while they’re working, but they have a very small collection of movies. I know why, but still, they can’t torture me with this boredom. I’m only looking at this movie because I have no idea what else to do.

I decide to get something to eat. That’ll be good. You see, Xim may be different, but she seems to be independent and strong. All the kids I’ve met talk about Simstagram and recent movies and are pretty childish overall. But Xim seems to be a lot more mature, considering she had survived by herself for so long. How often do you get to meet a ten-year-old girl who was completely on her own for a month? I don’t think a lot of people like that are there, so people like her are quite rare in my opinion.

Another thing that hurts is that I can’t give money to her. I know why, but can’t we at least spare some simoleons? Like a hundred simoleons? Charity?

While I’m thinking, my mom comes over to me.

• 

• 

She doesn’t spend a lot of time with me with her work and all, but she does talk to me sometimes. But mostly about important things. Was this important?

“Shi-Shi,” she starts. “Do you like Xim?”

“Yes,” I reply, annoyed. How she doesn’t know that is dumb.

“How come?” she asks patiently. I don’t know why my parents are so stubborn with accepting who I talk with now. Like I said before, they never cared a crap about what I did or who I socialized with. Has that old friend ruined their trust? I wonder why they had me to be honest if they weren’t actually going to care about what I thought.

“She’s nice, likes positive things and she’s also independent,” I say, wondering how to summarize Xim in a few words. I’ve only met her two times but I can say I know a lot about her already.

“What about her negative qualities?” my mom presses on. I sigh with her stupidity.

“She doesn’t seem to have any,” I reply. Her head turns away from me and her expression changes to a what-a-stupid-girl look. She was disappointed with my answer. She sighs and asks, “Have you not seen how she talked to us?”

“Her survival journey must have changed her,” I say thoughtfully. “Don’t be hard on her.”

She says nothing about that but she still looks like she wants to say something. She did, but her next words surprise me.

“Well, Shi-Shi, do you want to go to the park on Thursday, when we’re off and you come home from school?” she asks.

I’m wondering what to say. But I mean, hey, does this mean she and my dad will spend time with me? If so, that’d be wonderful since they never do that with me. A few times they did but short trips to the grocery store when I was younger and they couldn’t call someone to take care of me. Any other time they’d go on vacation they’d go without me. So now this question is proving to be pretty different than what they’d usually ask.

“Okay,” I say. This moment is definitely different from the last one. Not that I’d like to forget about Xim, but I don’t want to discuss her with my mom especially since my mom isn’t talking positive about her.

“Okay, Shi-Shi, I already discussed this with your dad and he agreed. But let’s not talk about Xim on that day, okay?”

“Fine,” I mutter. It’s not like I’ll have anything about Xim to discuss with them normally anyway. It’ll be better to keep the peace at the park.

• 

• 

• 

I go to bed after eating my dinner and I start thinking about things while I’m in bed. That food is usually what they provide me with while they’re working and I can’t really complain since there isn’t much else. But tomorrow I’d have to go to school. It isn’t my favorite, who will, but it’s not something I despise like most kids. I usually go there because then I can go on the computers, read several books and do things without my parents around.

I do my schoolwork of course, but some of it requires online study. While a lot of kids adore online study (they can type instead of write, and can do research much, much easier and they can even try and sneak off if they wanted to), what about the kids who don’t really have much access to this? My parents have a computer but it’s only for them to do their work. I have to stay for afterschool if I wanted to do the online work. But then again I only stay for an hour since my parents expect me at that time. And one hour isn’t a lot of time for big projects.

I do want good grades for life purposes, but I wonder what I might have to accomplish in the future since I’m not keen on doing every subject that I want to. I might as well forget the entire syllabus during summer vacation. But I want to learn about social studies things. Not history and stuff like that but about the government and all. I do want to become a moving force for the people in hardships. Like Xim.

Does Xim go to school? Pretty sure not, considering she’s in a sticky situation herself. If she were going to school, then she’d have to be adopted, which I doubt she is. But did she go to school before that? If she were in school and her mom died, I doubt she’d be taken out of school so easily like that.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I wake up the next day, Monday. Mondays are so boring, honestly, because why do the teachers make it that way? I go to the bathroom, brush my teeth and do the paper homework. I had forgotten to do that with all that was going on, Over the weekend, I also had to finish a digital project, which wasn’t easy since my parents only let me have it for thirty minutes at nighttime, while they were sleeping.

Then I get ready to go to school and remember to take my umbrella.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I come back from school and my parents come back from work, but much later than I. I normally play on the computer and eat whatever’s in the fridge while I wait for them. They give me at least this freedom to be by myself at home without a babysitter anymore. I’m almost a teen anyway, but they don’t let me out of the house.

My dad goes somewhere else while my mom sits down and talks to me.

“You know what?” she asks me apprehensively. “Good news!”

I finish my bite and ask her casually, “What is it?” It had better be something good since she never told me these things before.

She takes a deep breath in and out. What is she preparing for, I just wonder.

“I’m pregnant! One month!” she says excitedly. Everything slows down around me until only she’s in my focus.

What! How?! That is not! Really! True! But how? I cannot say anything as I’m in shock.

Pregnancy costs a lot. For the woman, the bodily changes and all. The man, probably financial things, especially if he’s married to the woman.

But we don’t have a lot of money compared to what I think Xim thinks. She seems to think we have this big mansion so apparently we’re rich. But as mature as she is, I doubt even she knows the financial business, to be quite honest with you. I learned about it from eavesdropping (my parents talk an awful lot about finance) but the majority from personal research at nighttime.

We don’t even own ten percent of this house. The bank owns about ninety-three percent of it and we still have an awful lot to go, if you add interest. I know banks need to get paid, but sheesh, can’t they give struggling families a waive? Probably not. My parents together can make a decent amount of income but with the ten-year mortgage that they made (making them work like donkeys to keep up with the payment, why did they do that?) for a reason I can’t comprehend (faster ownership and less interest?) Not to mention, they have a child, me. A child needs a lot of things, education, food, social life, fun activities, love. The things I’m not getting a lot of are the last three, to be fair, with them working so much. They’re in a terrible situation already and all I can do is worry. I’m even worrying if my mom will have to stop working in her third trimester.

And now what happened next? A baby. On normal circumstances, I’d be happy. I’m a good person, after all. But knowing too much about our financial situation is keeping me from getting a proper grip on everything. A baby might not cost much compared to the mortgage, but it’ll still be quite an impact. My brain is hurting at this already. Will they also start neglecting this child as well?

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I scream, hoping no one will hear me. Why are we so poor? Why are we like this? Why did my father’s seed fly into my mom’s ovaries? Xim might be in a better situation than me as far as I know. I don’t have much freedom to do anything and I can’t even get access to the internet at home without sneaking on the computer or begging for permission. And now my sibling will get treated the same way. As the sibling grows up, will we even be able to afford everything? Will I be taking a job when I’m older?

• 

• 

After taking my frustration out I decide to calm down. It’s too much to handle for one day, so let me just go to bed.

• 

• 

• 

• 

I sit down on the floor trying to free my mind of thoughts then go to the bathroom to shower. Showering is soothing as it tends to make you think of positive things. Most ideas come from the shower after all.

Then I go to bed.

---

Author’s Note:

Good news! I got a new hard drive and now my computer works perfectly! I shuffled back all my Sims 4 files and found the Sims 4 can now boot perfectly even with mods! 😄 I played out the tutorial too as I’ve never done so. XD It is the main reason why I was a little busy during these days. 😉 Oh, I’m also creating custom content and mods since I wasn’t able do that properly with the old hard drive so another reason why I was busy. 🙂

Aaaaaaaand this is what you get if you let MC Pregnancy run its course. 🤭 I didn’t configure the settings yet to turn off story progression (because I can do my own story progression. 😉 Don’t want Andromeda getting married to an ugly townie or something because of this 😂) so this is what happened. But instead of terminating it I decided to, well, play along with it. 😁

So now we know how things go from Shiew’s point of view and a few new things as well! They aren’t as rich as we thought them to be (oh… 😬) and now they’ve having a baby when they have a 10-year mortgage which they recently applied for along with interest to pay (oh, dear… 😬) and are also trying to survive with all the other basic necessities as well (food, water, power, well, bills in general) while trying to keep Shiew in school and doing everything necessary. (Oh no! 😱) The best situation a family can be in, am I right! 😀

Yes, Shiew knows the ups and downs of finance, but thinks the seed of the man flies into the ovaries and into an egg! 😂 (Okay, when I was her age, I thought that too. 🙂 Confessions. I didn’t know what the bedtime routine that parents usually do at night (ooh la la 😊) and school only taught me how a zygote, embryo and other variations of a fetus was born, but not exactly on the point how it was conceived. 😂)

We might have to see how Xim might react once she figures out the truth but that probably won’t be soon. 😛 I won’t put it off for too long though, like Chapter 80 or something, so don’t worry! 😉 She won’t be taking it lightly as far as we know, however.

They also say the ones who are helpless and have no authority (such as children like Shiew) throw the most temper-tantrums because there is no other way for them to handle the situation. ):

But we’ll also see how the park trip on Thursday will go (in about two chapters or so)! Will the parents even keep their promise in the first place? And if they do, will it be fun? Who knows, it might be thundering and Mrs. Irizarry gets hit by lightning again. That’ll be fun. 🌞

---

<< Previous – Chapter 7: An Autumn Sight       Chapter 9: Yarn and Needles – Next >>