Stove by a whale

Round 33: February 2038 (Summer)

last update/Declan's next update/next update

Araminta Romilly is 75, Finn and Victoria are 37, Declan is 17, Caitlin is 15 and Keira is 7.

(Jessica is 18, Brendan is 15 and Annabel and Georgina are 14)

Narrated by Caitlin Romilly

This is Declan’s last year of high school and his last year here at home with us and I’m kind of jealous.

I’m just so sick of school. I know I’d have to do work at uni as well but it seems like it would be different if it was something I was choosing to study and not boring stuff like trigonometry.

Declan is so excited about it. He’s had his college plan mapped out for a long time now and it’s just about all he talks about.

The house will be really weird without Declan around. I think I’ll actually miss him when he’s away at college next year. A lot of girls don’t get along so well with their brothers but Declan and I are pretty close.

We’re very different, so we butt heads and nag at each other sometimes but mostly, we do okay.

I’m still looking forward to Declan moving to campus though, because it means I get his room! Keira is cool and everything but I am getting a little sick of sharing a room with her.

The whole place is filled with her toys, which at 15, I’m not really into any more.

Well, sometimes I am, when I’m playing with Keira. But generally, I have other things I'd choose to fill the space.

But there is no space. Keira's things take up much more room than mine and all my stuff ends up crammed in the corner.

I’m going to complete redo Declan’s room. I’m keeping his bed because it's awesome, but everything else has to go.

Declan think it’s pretty funny that I’m planning on such a makeover, seeing I’ll probably only have the room for two years. And also because I technically haven’t asked Mum and Dad yet.

That’s true, I guess. I think they’ll be okay with it though. Most of the time, my parents are cool but sometimes they do spectacularly uncool things, so you never know.

Like the “facts of life” talk I was subjected to when I started going out with Brendan. No one wants to talk about that with their parents but Mum is insistent.

She and Dad had me and Declan when they were quite young. She was using birth control too, so she really wants to drive home how careful I need to be and how I need to make sure it's with the right person.

I know it's important but it doesn’t make it any less embarrassing for me though.

Besides, Brendan and I aren’t anywhere near that stage yet. We’ve only been together for five months.

We’ve only kissed and I don’t see myself being ready to go any further for a good while yet.

We’re just having fun together. We were friends forever first, before we started dating and I think that’s made it less awkward than it might be otherwise.

Brendan lives pretty far away - his parents have a farm - so we only go on dates on the weekends. But seeing we’re in school together every day anyway, that’s not so bad.

Ever since Brendan and I started dating, Georgina has been acting a little weird with me. She’s always quiet but she seems quieter than normal.

She hardly ever says anything when I talk about Brendan. It seems to make her really uncomfortable.

She insists nothing’s wrong and that she’s fine. I hope so, but I'm not so sure.

Annabel used to be a little weird about me and Brendan too but that mystery was solved when she confessed that she had a little thing for Brendan.

I was a bit worried about that but she says she’s totally over him now and she’s fine with us dating.

I do believe her, seeing she appears to have turned her attention to Declan.

He’s probably the third or fourth guy Annabel has had a crush on, so I should have known her thing for Brendan wouldn’t last long.

Declan is always nice to her but he’s not actually interested. Annabel thinks he is but I know he’s just being polite. She was the same way with Mitchell and he wasn’t actually interested either. She’s a bit clueless that way.

Even if Declan was willing to date a 14-year-old, he's way too into Jessica to notice Annabel. Jessica doesn’t start her classes at Suffolk until next month, so she’s over at our place quite a bit at the moment.

She’s going to be much busier in a few weeks, so they’re spending as much time as they can together.

It’s giving the family a good opportunity to get to know her too, which has been good.

Jessica was three years ahead of me at school, so I really didn’t know her very well before she started dating Declan. I like her a lot though.

We have quite a lot in common; we’re both “foodies”. Jessica is studying culinary arts, which I’m considering as an option. I might end up doing business or events planning instead, I’m still not sure.

Declan loves that we get along so well, except for the fact he never has anything to contribute to our cuisine talk.

Dad hadn’t seen Jessica since he last taught her in Grade 6, so it's been kind of like meeting again for the first time. He was very happy to see Jessica turned out so smart and is so enthusiastic about starting her courses. Dad’s very big on school, naturally, and none of us will get away with not going to college.

Really, Jessica clicks pretty well with the whole family. If she’s over on a Friday or Saturday night, we’ll often all be around the table together until 1 or 2 in the morning, just talking.

Keira really likes Jessica and is always annoyed Mum and Dad force her to go to bed when Jessica’s still here. She always gets a special goodnight to make up for it.

I’m hoping it all goes as smoothly when Brendan meets my family, as Dad keeps insisting he must do.

Dad says he’s let it go longer than he might have normally only because he remembers Brendan from school and he works with Brendan’s mum, so he knows he’s still a good kid.

There’s no getting out of it, so I’m not even trying. I’m really nervous about it though and am praying Brendan doesn’t get grilled too badly!

Notes:

• Title is from Stove By A Whale by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.
• At the moment, I'm still using scholarships to figure out which Sims will go to uni and which won't but I've developed a new system, which I'll put a post up about soon (I've been talking about it at N99, so some of you would have already seen the draft there). Declan did really well under both systems though, so obviously, he will be attending Suffolk next year.
• Caitlin and Brendan are pretty adorable together. They haven't rolled any woohoo wants, despite many wants to make out, so it's all very innocent for the timebeing.
• And yes, Annabel still hasn't rolled any wants for Brendan, so I'm thinking her attempt at kissing him at school this round was a spur of the moment thing and not after a long crush. I don't expect her infatuation with Declan to last very long either.
• Jessica went over way better with Declan's family than Dixie did with Abigail, so that was nice. Still feeling a bit bad for poor Dixie! They can't really roll romantic wants for each other, because Jessica is a YA and Declan is still a teen but they seem happy together and they now have less than a year until Declan will also be on campus. :)
• For those wondering about Georgina and Brendan, Georgina has quite the crush on him and has so far watched him pining after Annabel and now dating Caitlin. I wrote a bit about them here and then a little more in the high school update. Thanks Starr, for the reminder to link!