Chapter 18
I barely spoke with my family over the next couple of days; they made no attempts at conversation either, which was fine with me. I spent my time texting the girls and watching the Euro, which had a couple of matches being played every day. My dad was more grumpy than usual, and snapped at any of us for the smallest things. I had too much experience with his moods however, and was smart enough to simply keep silent whenever he was in earshot as he was obviously feeling particularly resentful towards me for now.
Sid and my mom weren't as lucky, though, and both of them were nearly reduced to tears from a couple of Dad's outbursts over the weekend. He had been yelling at them both for leaving dishes unwashed in the sink, which I thought was extremely unfair since I had never once seen him wash the dishes after any meal; he always left them half-rinsed and my mom or I would clean them at some point. After hearing that yelling for a few minutes I finally broke my resolve to keep silent. Walking purposefully into the living room I faced him coolly.
"Back off Dad, you're no better on a daily basis," I said warningly. He glared at me.
"Mind your own business," he suggested scathingly. I didn't flinch from the harshness in his tone.
"Making it my business," I replied smoothly. His scowl grew more pronounced and he took a step towards me as if to hit me, while Mom and Sid simply looked on with bated breath. "Go on Dad, hit me." I invited, holding up my hands in surrender. "But stop lecturing them about the dishes, have you ever done them once since I was born? Because I definitely haven't seen that."
We simply stared at each other for a minute, him furiously, me calmly. Finally he stormed out of the room towards the bathroom. Sid looked at me uncertainly. "Don't think I'm going to do that again," I told him and Mom. "You guys have to stand up to him too if he's being unfair. I'm only here to egg you on in doing that for a few months, he's not always right and the sooner he knows that, the better."
Apart from that minor argument, the rest of Sunday and Monday passed by without incident. Tuesday evening came and I found myself hurriedly finishing off the last couple of report cards for the kids in my lessons. Since next week would be the last of the school year session, all the children had to receive their progress reports then. I glanced at the clock in the office as I printed the last one, it was quarter to nine. "Need to get somewhere?" Brianna asked as she looked over at me. I nodded.
"I have a soccer game to go see, it's gonna start at 9," I replied, putting the finished reports in a pile.
"To go see?" she repeated. "Aren't you playing?"
"I play, and coach, but tonight I'm just going to watch a friend's match. And I'm late so I'll see you around Bri," I called as I jogged out the door. Jumping into the car and pulling out onto the road, I had to stop almost immediately as the traffic light turned red. I gritted my teeth but could do nothing except wait until it turned green. I barely managed to get past the next light when the one after turned red as I approached too. "Seriously?!" I hissed to no one in particular. It was now three minutes to nine; I had definitely missed the chance to wish Tracy good luck in person before the game. But since the light was red I quickly dashed off a text saying the same and sent it, hoping she would see it before she went onto the field.
I had to face two more red lights on my way to the field and was positively fuming as I rushed to the bleachers. As I had feared the game had started and I sat down on a seat as close as possible to the field. I recognized Tracy immediately; she was playing up front tonight, and throughout the first half she gave the opposing defenders a rough time whenever she had the ball. I grinned when, on a couple of occasions, she took an unexpected touch on the ball and was running towards the goal with the defence looking flat-footed and utterly out of their depth.
