Growing Pains

Chapter 22 - It was just a dream

"That's so sad." Now he was just making fun of me.

"Right," I stopped him. "Can I come in now?"

"No! Look, I've been feeling like a bag of shit for the past weeks. I broke my leg. I can't play football. Tell me, Daisy, how am I gonna get a sports scholarship if I'm not doing any fucking sports?"

He took a deep breath.

"Can't you just let me have this one night?"

I showed him my middle finger, "I'm gonna call mom."

"Yes please!" He begged. "Do that! Mom will know what to do. Now bye, I have to go get dressed."

He was right only about having to get dressed. He was wearing his boxer shorts, a t-shirt with a stain on it, and the cast on his leg. Nothing more, nothing less.

But he was wrong about mom. She wouldn't know what to do. Or she would, but it would always be in his favor, never mine. My parents had never been afraid of playing favorites with their children, regardless of how socially repulsive that might be.

Still, I called my mom. She picked up only after a while, at which point, she asked very seriously, "This better not be about your brother's party?"

I opened my mouth. Then closed it again.

"Yes, honey," she went on, "He asked us if he could have a party while we were gone. We said yes. What's the matter?"

"He locked me out of the house."

"Oh, honey, you're making it out to be something that it's just not. Your brother's going through a lot right now. Let him have this."

"He can have it all he wants. I just wanna be able to go to my room. I told him I would stay in there for the whole night. He's just being a bitch –"

"Daisy," my mom stopped me. "You know that's not reasonable. You're not gonna spend the whole night locked in your room at your own brother's party."

"Then where am I supposed to go?"

"Zoey's?"

"She's at a concert."

"Without you?" She sounded very surprised. If I didn't know any better, I would be too.

"It's a long story." Which I was still very much upset about. Except now wasn't the time.

"Well, go to your grandma's house then. I'm sure she'll be more than happy to have you."

"This is bananas."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you. Make some banana bread," she said. "Your grandma has a great recipe."

I hung up. Not before saying goodbye of course. And I love you. Mom always demanded I said it. I sat down on the side of the road. I was still in my stupid dress. Soon I would be cold in it too. I had to think. There was no way I was going to my grandma's house. I was still recovering from the last time I had been there.

She had pinched my stomach with her arthritis-stricken fingers and said, "Whoever's feeding you needs to stop."

I was pretty sure I had put on even more weight since then. She definitely wouldn't let me have any banana bread tonight. That day, she had also asked me if I had finally managed to get a boyfriend, and when I said no, she said, "Well, of course, no one likes a feminazi."

I had never heard the word feminazi before, but she had made a case of explaining that it was the coming together of the words feminist and Nazi. Then she had asked me what I planned to do with my future. I had meant to lie, but Jason hadn't let me. When my grandma heard I wanted to pursue a career in music, she threatened me with a heart attack and said something about girls naked on TV and living with my parents until I was fifty.