queen on her own color ♡ JFK

p.17 parental mistakes

A more than three hour drive back home, in silence. Torture. She felt like a child in trouble all over again.

Lowell made her sit on the back seat, probably because he couldn't bear see her face, though every time he looked through the rear view mirror he caught a glimpse of her looking out the window.

He'd only given her time to fetch Queen and her cat stuff. Christina envied the kitten and wished she could be her at the moment.

Arriving to the city, her dad spoke only to instruct her to keep a low profile. Painfully aware of her notoriety now, he thought it best, even in the dark of the night, given the situation.

While he pulled into their street, his head darted all over with paranoia before exiting the car. As always, he rushed to the front door to open it at once.

Diana had been waiting in the living room not knowing what to do the whole time. When she saw their faces as they walked into the dining room, and saw the tense invisible string attached to them, hanging by a thread, she suspected there had to be more to the situation.

"To your room," Lowell instructed to his daughter.

"You can't-" Christina tried to complain.

"I said to your room!"

No other voice on Earth could beat Lowell Clark's. His sounded just as potent as the horn from the ship he'd just disembarked seven hours ago. He hadn't even caught a breath yet since he'd arrived so that was nowhere near its full potential.

Christina's mouth curved downward at the tone. He got what he wanted with it, and managed to scare her off upstairs. Tearful eyes threatened to cascade.

"Why are you yelling at her like that?"

Rubbing a hand up and down his jawline, Lowell mulled over what he'd walked into a few hours ago.

"I told her-and she's gone and made it even worse. She's lost all sense of discretion. How is this the same girl from seven months ago?"

"Lowell, what's going on?" Diana her remarked her insistence with emphasis in each word.

It was then when the man dead-on faced his wife, doubt floating in dizzying spirals over his head.

"Did you know about the goddamn President?"

"Kennedy? What about him?"

Lowell leaned on the back of a chair.

"He was at the Indigo when I got there."

This didn't faze Diana too much, who had gobbled down the ambassadorship pretense just like everyone else.

"He's been her sponsor throughout the whole ordeal since his party. She told me they were working together on-"

Lowell backed away and pushed the chair forward with force when he did so, creating a cacophonous screeching sound.

"Do you want to know what they've been working together on, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"She's been having sex with him, Diana!"

Diana blinked once, twice, and three times, but no amount of blinking made what she'd just heard easier to digest.

"Sex?!"

"They both reeked of it!" He recalled with disgust. "How could you let her go off by herself like that? She's eighteen! And now there's this old man grooming her! He's my fucking age, it makes me sick!"

Baffled by Lowell putting that on her, Diana scowled at him, head tilted at one side.

"I can't control an adult!"