Tough Love

Chapter 1

Chapter One –

 I sped down the dark road, not caring if I went over the speed limit. I had other things to care about at the moment, other than stupid speed limits. The green light in the distance looked hazy. I pressed the breaks abruptly and the car skidded. Once it fully stopped, I took deep breaths, trying to calm myself. Tears leaked out of my eyes and ran down my face, and it felt like I always ended up as a mess on these nights now a days. My car stood at the side of the road, and for once I let myself cry. My body shook with every sob, and with weak fists, I punched at the steering wheel in helplessness. This couldn’t be happening to me. I was a werewolf, for god’s sake! I wasn’t supposed to lose something as important as my eyesight.

As my tears slowed down, I allowed myself to drive again. My phone was in my hand as I called Brandon for the twentieth time, hoping he'd answer, hoping he might just pick up and try to make everything better.

 The green light was still hazy, and as I approached the light, it changed to red. I closed my eyes tightly, hoping that when I opened them this horrible nightmare would be gone. That this all was just a really, really bad dream. I started counting to three.

One… Two… BEEP!

An impatient driver from behind honked their horn. I saw that the hazy light was now green, so I started driving again. I guess this really was happening to me. I was losing my eyesight. I was going blind.

I took the familiar turn to my street. All the houses’ lights were on. Our house compared to my neighbor's looked like a ill-lit jack ol' lantern.

It was now that I realized how my house stood out from all the others. The once green, lush grass that used to be so alive was now yellow and dead. The white paint that used to coat the house was now chipping. The front door needed to be repaired with new screws.

My childhood home that had been perfect just a year ago was now dead, all because of this stupid disease that happened to fall upon me. Once I had parked the car, I walked lifelessly towards the house. I took off my shoes slowly and dropped them lightly at the entrance of the house.

Yelling echoed from the living room and I wandered towards it, a cringe already settled on my shoulders.

It was my parents. I silently tiptoed into the hall and peeked into the living room.

"You can't just expect me to drop our business, can you? We worked so hard for it, there are plenty of werewolf treatment centers here-" My dad struggled to keep his voice calm, tame. Anger and frustration flickered through his voice, his gestures...

“If it’s for our daughter, then yes we should drop everything! She’s more important! Or have you forgotten about that, too?”  Mom exclaimed.

They continued to argue on and on, voices raising. They screamed and fought about me, that the business was nothing compared to my health, but that this was my father's dream, and we were at the brink of finally having a successful and a steady income- something we had lacked for so long.

By now I hadn't realized I'd been crying soundlessly again. My eyes hurt from all the tears and my lower eyelid burned from all the times I had to keep wiping away the waterfall of tears that escaped. I knew I should've just left, just went upstairs and slept, but I felt that I needed to listen to the last of their argument. That I deserved all this from the chaos and hardships I had created in our household.

Once their words came out, once my parents had lost any energy (mostly emotional) to continue their bickering- their arguing, my mom walked towards the living room window and looked through the curtain.

Her hand lifted to her forehead in realization and my dad came to her side to look out the window.

They saw my car and that I had arrived home.

My dad was the first to turn, followed by my mom. His apolegetic gaze met mine. Instant regret flashed through his eyes as well as my mother's. My eyes impossibly welled up with tears even more.

"I-I'm sorry," I whispered raggedly, my words tumbling and tripping over eachother. I turned and ran up the stairs before they could stop me, and just as I closed my bedroom door, a sudden rush of tears ripped through my body.

A painful lump blocked my throat, only accepting my sobs and tears and cries to ease the pain.

The rest of the dark night was spent in silence in my house.

There was a light click on my bedroom door hours later. I held my breath and didn't move until the door closed.

 My thoughts carried on endlessly through the night until they lullabied me into a restless sleep, where reality all but didn't exist.