Weeping Willow (Spanking Story)

Chapter 15, Part 1: Owen's POV

I heard Penny's alarm for school go off in the next room, and knew she must be getting up, too. Part of me wanted to go into her room right that moment and refuse to leave until she talked to me, but I knew that wouldn't be fair of me to do. I couldn't corner her into doing that and ruin our relationship even further.

I got my wish when Penny actually knocked on the door to my bedroom as I was putting my shoes on. She stood rigidly in the doorway and avoided eye contact altogether.

"Ben said come down for breakfast," she said in a monotone voice, throwing the last word over her shoulder as she turned away.

"Penny, wait!" I called, standing up with a half-tied shoe, shirt coming untucked.

She actually stopped, but kept her back facing the door. Her shirt was untucked too.

"I'm really sorry—" I began.

"I don't want to hear it, Owen," she snapped, beginning to walk away again.

"Please, Penny," I croaked, shocked at the rush of tears to my eyes. "I really am sorry. You have to understand—"

She turned around, and pure rage had taken over the indifferent mask I had been facing all weekend. "I don't have to understand anything," Penny spat. "What you did was unforgivable."

"I had to do it, Penny," I tried, stepping toward her.

She put her hand up to halt my approach. "You didn't have to do anything, Owen. You embarrassed me. You humiliated me. You ruined my night and got me in big trouble for your own selfish reasons."

She began walking toward me now, listing an accusation with a step forward and a pointer finger jabbed in my direction.

"You ratted me out and got me grounded. I'm not allowed to hang out with my best friend anymore. Our brothers will never trust me again." She was right in my face now. "You betrayed me."

"I did it for your own good!" I exclaimed exasperatedly, throwing my hands into the air. "I was just looking out for you, sis."

"You don't know what's 'good for me' anymore, Owen," Penny said sharply, shaking her head and backing up slowly. "You haven't in a while, especially since you met that bitch, Leah."

Those tiny humans in my brain who were desperate to reconcile with my sister were won over by the teenage hormones giving a caveman signal to protect my girlfriend from anyone who dared breathe a foul breath in her direction.

"Don't ever call her that! I don't know what you're problem is, she's only trying to help! I can't help it if you're jealous that I can find a girlfriend and you can't find a decent guy—"

Penny recoiled as if I'd slapped her. In retrospect, it was an extremely shitty and shallow thing of me to say. But teenage hormones didn't care about being shitty and shallow.

"Fuck you, Owen." Her eyes narrowed to thin slits. "You're so full of yourself, and our brothers are full of it too. I'm sick of all four of you."

"Look, I really am sorry. But it's not Leah's fault. She even agrees with me, and thinks you're being too sensitive about the whole thing..."

Penny laughed with dry humor. "Too sensitive. Right." She turned around again, walking back to the doorway. "Just do me a favor and stay out of my life, Owen."

~*~

I folded my tenth paper football in three hours, trying to decide which student to flick it at next. A pile of finished school work lay beside me, and an untouched history book I'd been giving for "additional work" lay pushed to the side. My first morning in ISS hadn't been terrible. The room was near the principal's office, and smelled vaguely like old ham. We were seated in two columns of desks which had dividers on the left and right side so you couldn't see your neighbor, sort of like cubicles. It was supposed to be isolating, but I kind of liked it. It made it ridiculously easy to check my phone without the supervising teacher noticing.

After talking with Penny this morning, we had sat at opposite ends of the table while all five of us sat for an awkward breakfast. Penny ate three bites of her toast and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl before stalking out the door without so much as a "goodbye" to any of us.

As I got up to leave, too, Ben grabbed my arm.

"Be good today, Owen," he warned, fixing my gaze with a stern glare. "If you get in trouble during ISS, Principal Yates has threatened to suspend you indefinitely from soccer, and don't you think I'll try to stop him."

My eyes had widened, heart hammering wildly in my chest. The thought of not being able to play soccer was something I honestly couldn't fathom. Nevertheless, my days of screwing up and disappointing my brothers were through. I wanted to gain their trust and respect back—even Danas'.

"I won't, Ben. For real, I'm through getting in trouble," I had assured him.

I checked my phone again, and no notifications. Man, my social life was as abandoned as a blockbuster store. I hadn't heard from my parents now in several days, and a dense feeling of dread was solidifying in my gut. Surely they had seen my messages by now. Why hadn't they responded?

Part of me felt like maybe they were in some trouble. I wished I had some way to find out. If they needed help, I had a shit ton of cash saved up, enough to bond for a high bail.

I flicked the paper football toward a boy with fiery hair and pants that were too high above his shoes. It hit his shoulder and startled him awake, where he'd been snoozing over his schoolwork.

It had taken me no time at all to finish my assignments for the day, and I had even put a good amount of effort in, instead of the half-assed tries I usually gave my schoolwork. If I didn't have to go to classes and could just do my work like this every day, I could be graduating next year, and go into the pro soccer leagues before I was even a legal adult.

Yeah, right. I wasn't getting away with skipping college. Not with three brothers who literally chose to educate students for the rest of their miserable lives.

If I didn't hear from my parents soon, I was going to go by their house and ask around town until I got some sort of answer. I sent the same text I had sent for the past couple days.

"Hey, just checking up on you and making sure you're ok. I'm getting worried. Love and miss you."

I needed a relationship with my parents so badly, craved it with the very core of my being. Especially with how things were going with Penny. I couldn't afford to lose both her and my parents. It felt like our family was slipping through my very fingertips, and there was nothing I could do to prevent its dissolution.