thoughts running through her head

They couldn't exactly get the splinter out, immediately. Everyone came in and wanted to go to dinner.

Ellie supposed they'd spend the night here and head back in the morning.

"That is the plan, isn't it?" She asked her Dad hoping she had a chance to speak to him alone, but Kyle's mother always seemed to be around.

It wasn't that Ellie was bitter about it, but still it just seemed wrong. Completely wrong. How could this have happened? Didn't her father have any sense of....restraint?

Then she sat around hugging a pillow thinking her father would think the same thing if you knew about her and Eric.

She could barely manage through dinner that night at some local hangout Ben wanted to take them too with Texas grilled food. The splinter kept bothering her. Just a reminder of what an idiot she was.

Ellie had these visions of going straight to the emergency room about the splinter in her back just to find out it was a ploy to get her to the psych ward where they'd ask her a million questions about why did she do it. Why were you in the hayloft with your boyfriend?

Were there any good answers about that? Really?

She could imagine one doctor evaluating her, "Ellie likes the great outdoor, evidently." With this going through her head, Ben was suddenly taking snapshots of everyone.

"Do you want these for a scrapbook?" He intruded her thoughts of what would be the truth of this whole hayloft matter.

"What?" Ellie felt a little sad about the idea. After all, it was as if one book had been closed in her life and another completely open for disaster.

"I can e-mail them to you," Ben said.

"OK, that would be great." She actually said that. She didn't feel drunk, but she didn't feel herself, either and she had to work that much harder to make any sense.

She felt a bit in a fog. People were talking to her. But she just didn't understand. What was going on? It was just too much.

"I think I'm just tired." Ellie said. But the splinter was annoying her and the question kept coming back to her. Who was she more like? Her mother or her father?