This Town

Chapter 8

Towards the end of the school day, I drop Derek back. "Are you coming in?" He asks and I shake my head no. "I'm gonna start on dinner early I think." I say and he nods before climbing out of the car. "Tell the others I said hi." I say and he nods again before I drive home.

Once I got home I watched 2 episodes of friends before Stiles got home. When Stiles got home I started on dinner.

"What's for dinner?" Stiles asks following me into the kitchen. "I don't know, I can't really be bothered. Im thinking pasta." I say and he nods.

"Im going to that rave tonight, can we talk when I come home." He says and my heart skips a beat. "Sure, about what?" I ask and he shrugs. "A lot of things." He says and I smile and nod before carrying on cooking.

Whilst I cook, Stiles just stands there whilst we talk about our favourite episodes of Friends.

After dinner was done, Stiles demolished it before rushing out the door.

I cleaned up from dinner and put my dads food in a container to take to him. That's why when he walked through the door, I was extremely shocked.

"Hey you're home early. I didn't know. I'll heat this up and serve it up. How was work?" I ask putting his food in the microwave.

I serve dad dinner and sit opposite him. "What's wrong?" I ask and he sighs. "I have a leave of absence." Dad says and my eyes widen. "What? Why?" I ask confused.

"Stiles stole that property didn't he? He also got a restraining order against the most respected attorney's son. It doesn't reflect well on the county." Dad says and I sigh.

"Dad, im so sorry. Is it temporary?" I ask and he shrugs. "Hopefully, but they didn't say otherwise." Dad says and I groan.

"Im sorry." I say and he looks up to meet my eyes. "Why? It isn't your fault." Dad says and I sigh.

"I told you when I said I'd move back, that I'd help with Stiles. And now he's worse more now than ever and he's got you fired." I say and dad sighs. "That wasn't the reason you came back home Nia. That only made you feel better about coming home." He says and I sigh.

"What will we do?" I ask and dad sighs. "I don't know Nia. We'll be fine." He says and I sigh. I go to the kitchen and pour him some whiskey to give him.

"Drink this, then head to bed. You should have an early night, you know for the first time in like forever." I say and he chuckles.

"You and your mother are so similar. You remind me so much of her now." He says taking a sip of his whiskey.

He went up to bed not to long later, whilst I waited for Stiles to come home. I ended up falling asleep on the sofa.

I woke up to Stiles placing a blanket over me. "Sorry." He says and I nod. "That's alright. I should probably go to bed, unless you still wanted to talk." I say and he sighs.

"How's dad? Is he okay?" He asks and I nod. "I gave him a drink and sent him to bed." I say and Stiles sighs. "Is he angry at me?" He asks and I scoff. "Not nearly as angry as he should be Stiles." I say making him sigh again.

"I don't know how many times I need to say im sorry." Stiles says and I just shake my head no. "Saying sorry won't fix things Stiles. It was bad enough when you did it as a joke. But there are consequences and dad getting fired was one of them." I say and Stiles sighs.

"Why did you come back?" Stiles randomly asks. "None of your business." I snap. "Well yes it is. You've come back and you're ruining my life. You're trying to take over for mom, you always have. You aren't her Nia, stop acting like you are. You don't have the right to shout at me." Stiles says and my eyes widen as I listen to him.

"Don't have the right? Stiles I'm trying to look out for you. If you didn't act like such an idiot all the time, I wouldn't have to. I never tried to take over from mom. But she isn't here anymore and if I don't step up every once in a while yours and dads life will fall apart. You can't take care of each other. I'd hate to see what you were like before I moved back in. I never see you cook or clean or do the laundry or go grocery shopping." I say and Stiles rolls his eyes.

"Im trying to make sure you're both okay. We only have each other now. You need boundaries Stiles. I don't know what's going on with you. Why you've been acting so strange but you need boundaries. You're 16 not 21. You're never here and I have no clue what your grades look like." I say and Stiles furrows his eye brows.

"See, look at you. That's all you've done since you've came back. You've complained and guilt tripped basically everyone. You're complaining im keeping secrets but you won't even tell me why you came home, you're a hypocrite." Stiles says and I roll my eyes.

"Why so you wanna know so bad? It has nothing to do with you. The reason I moved back stays between me and dad. I don't need you to worry about it because everything is fine, okay? Just you need to sleep Stiles." I say running a tired hand across my face.

"No." He says rasining his voice. "Tell me." He demands and I look at him full of disbelief. "Excuse me?" I ask and he just raises an eyebrow.

"It doesn't affect you Stiles, it never will. So please just drop it. You should be happy im home." I say and he scoffs.

"Since you've come home everything has changed. It's like you've ruined everything." He says and I look at him shocked. "You can't blame your problems on me Stiles. You aren't the only that had a bad day, dad did too. Go to bed." I say and he crosses his arms.

"No, you're a hypocrite. You're selfish. And you're trying to be someone you aren't." Stiles says and I hear dad moving around upstairs.

"Just go back to Phoenix Nia, we were better without you." He says and before dad can come downstairs I grab my keys and leave.

I wouldn't go back to Phoenix, no way in hell. I'll just drive around for a bit, go back later and sleep on it. That makes sense.

But as I drove around Stiles' words kept repeating in my head. It's all I could focus on. I didn't even see the headlights coming towards me till it was too late.

I swerved the car out of the way and lost control of the car. My head smacked off of the wheel and it went all black.