Ophelia Drowned

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

  Dad said I could stay at his place. I think he was trying to be nice, but the last thing I needed was his happy little life staring me down. We pulled up the house and I could see Mom waiting by the door. She looked even more livid, even more ready to chew me out.

For some people a car ride did a little to clear their head, for my mom the extra time had just brought her anger to a nice roiling boil.

"Mags," Dad said, before I could get out of the car. "Call. If you need to."

"Sure," I muttered. Not that I was going to. I could tune out whatever new lecture Mom was going to lay on me. What I really wanted was space. Between Hex's death wish and his mother's sobbing I just wanted to clear my head.

After I watched Dad drive away I tried to make a straight line through the door and somehow slip past Mom. This approach didn't work as well when she wasn't distracted by some urgent business call.

"Maggie!" She caught my shoulder and I shrugged her off. "Just wait-"

"It's freezing out here!" I argued. "I just want to go to bed."

"We have to talk."

"We'll talk tomorrow!"

She reached out and closed the door before I could push through it. I gave up trying to avoid it and faced her. I had a feeling this particular rant was going to be loud.

"What?" I asked her.

The impudent tone was more habit than design. It wasn't as if I actually wanted to make things worse. It just always seemed to happen that way.

"What you did tonight," she said. She pointed to the car as if she was pointing to a puddle on the floor and I was the offending puppy. "-Taking off without a word, stealing my car, breaking my rules- That's just not what this household is about. That isn't how I raised you!"

She actually sounded indignant, as if I had come with some guarantee on the day that I was born that said that if she followed the instructions she would get an obedient, honest and trouble-free daughter.

"What if you had gotten into an accident?" she continued. "You could have wrecked the car or hurt somebody!"

"I knew what I was doing!"

"You have no concept of what you're doing!" She was starting to shout. "You just do what you want! You just don't care!"

"I just wanted to see Hex!" I snapped. "I went to visit a friend in the hospital because I care about him!"

"You could have asked, you could have told me what was happening instead of taking off without a word and putting your father and I through all of this trouble! I was worried sick!"