Note: This is not the final edition that is available for free on retailers. This is an old beta version. Thanks for reading. :)
- Edited, again, sorry! -
"Oh, for God's sake, I'll wear the bloody jumper, just shut up already!"
I had finally snapped. I couldn't help it.
"You will not!" shrieked my grandmother at the exact same time as my father shouted at me to stop swearing.
I sighed wearily, resting my head in my hands preparing myself to sit there until they finished rowing. They ignored me and launched back into each other almost straight away. Typical.
"I won't have it any more, Stephen. I mean it! You can't tell her what to wear, you've no right!"
"I'm her father! I've every right! I don't want her wandering the streets like a tart, if she wants to be seen outside then she can cover herself up!"
"A tart?! Do you hear yourself? You must be the only man in Ireland who wants his 16 year old daughter to look like a boy. A tart...because she wants to wear a top her own mother bought her. The nerve of you!"
I'd had enough. They were both driving me insane. All over a woolly jumper. I was sick of them both. I jumped up, suddenly emboldened by anger and walked straight over to the front door.
"Where do you think you're going?" said my Dad, his navy blue eyes widening in disbelief.
"Out. To Tammie's house."
"You're not going out at this time of night," he said, his voice firm and resolute, never expecting an argument.
I gave him a withering look reserved for very important occasions.
"Dad, it's not even 7 o'clock yet. That's not night. It's still bright out. I'm tired of this. You can both argue all you like; I'm not listening to it anymore. When you both grow up and sort yourselves out, let me know. We all know you aren't really arguing over my clothes."
I glared at the two of them. They looked a little shame faced because they knew I was right. Their battles were never really about me. They didn't try to stop me leaving, much to my relief. It would have been mortifying if my rebellion was overturned before I actually left the house. I picked up the jumper but made a point of carrying it out the door.
Outside, I took a big relaxing breath. Exhaling slowly, I felt a lot calmer already and made my way over to Tammie Rutherford's house. She was my best friend and would absolutely understand if I hid in her house for a few hours. She knew better than anyone how much I needed a break from Dad and Gran. Sometimes they were toxic together. My mother had left us when I was small. Dad needed to finish medical school so he could get a permanent job in the local hospital. Gran had moved in with us to take care of me while he studied and worked. It hadn't worked out as well as they had thought it would.
They clashed over everything. He thought she was interfering and she thought he was domineering. Both things were true. He was way too strict and she was probably way too lenient. Either way, it didn't work. They both had me pulled in opposite directions and I always ended up in the middle when all hell broke loose between them. He thought he could run every aspect of my life while she assumed she had maternal rights seeing as her daughter ran out on us.
But most of all, they both blamed each other for my mother leaving. That's what they were really fighting over. Gran still thought my mother was going to come back and she didn't want us to move on. So everything in the house stayed the way my mother had kept it. No exceptions. And Dad was terrified that I would grow up to be as flighty and unreliable as my mother. So he battened down the hatches and kept me as close to him and as sheltered as possible. It was suffocating. My mother wasn't going to come back and I wasn't going to turn into her. But neither of them wanted to see that.
