Falling Slowly

Chapter Seventeen: Parents Are Gone

Have a listen at the song on the side :) It's one of my favorites and thought it went well with this chappy! ♥ Also, read my author's note at the end...if you want....it'll explain why this is SUPER DUPER late among other recognitions xD

Chapter Seventeen: Parents Are Gone

Grounded.

The word was foreign, alien – as if it was a concept too complex for my feeble mind to comprehend. Maybe my inadequate understanding came from my expectation of what my grounding would implicate against the reality of it all. My first thought had been that I would have all my freedom revoked and become a prisoner in my own bedroom – like Rapunzel locked away for the rest of my life. Okay, so maybe that was a bit too extreme. My parents weren’t that cruel. Sometimes, I wished they were. It would make hating them all the more easier.

A few days passed and soon a week had come and gone. I had carefully managed to avoid them, still angry, still feeling betrayal and resentment towards the secret they had kept from me. It was draining, harboring these dark feelings towards the people that I loved most. I missed talking to them about my day, telling them about the A I received on my AP Government test Friday or how Devino had called Karla’s lip syncing, the most dreadful performance he’s ever seen.

But I couldn’t tell them any of that stuff because I had firmly told myself I was not going to be the first to concede. I think it was the same thing Dad had promised himself because he could barely look at me without the flash of hurt and disappointment reflected in his brown eyes – the same as mine.

No. I couldn’t think that way. They were not the same. I didn’t share any physical attributes from them. Nothing. I was someone else’s kid. My parents were somewhere out there or maybe they were dead. Maybe that’s why I came to an adoption agency, where Phillip and Charlotte found me.

Stop it, a voice reprimanded. Stop being harsh. This isn’t you. They are your parents. Blood is not all that makes a family.

I hated my subconscious. It was that nagging voice that triumphed over my own always being right and taking pride over the fact.

The thing that bothered me about this whole grounding thing was that they didn’t even take away any privileges from me. I still continued my daily routine of coming home late from theater practice and hanging out with my friends on our weekly Friday Movie Night. I honestly didn’t understand this whole grounding thing. Was I even grounded? They weren’t really talking to me (not that I was making it any easier for them to do so) and I had also taken to eating dinner in my room for three nights and they didn’t even refute my decision.

It was maddening.

When I come late that Friday night, I was met with two suitcases propped against the stairs. I don’t know why but I freaked out at the sight of the black leather clad baggage. Fear racked through my mind as I tentatively walked into the kitchen where Mom was preparing a cooler of food and Dad was walking out of his study, caring an armful of binders and stray papers.

“What’s going on?” I asked. My heart was hammering in my throat. I had pushed them too far and now they were sending me away to some boot camp for unappreciative kids. Or maybe they were going to send me to some all girls academy in the middle of nowhere.

“We’re taking a trip.”

I gulped, fear clawing its way out and becoming a reality.

“Teacher Convention in Montgomery. We’ll be back late Sunday night.”

And just like that my fear slowly deflated like a balloon. They weren’t going to ship me off to some unknown place, leaving me all alone because they had come to a consensus that they couldn’t put up with me anymore. The overwhelming relief almost made me want to dissolve the resentment I still felt towards them both.