retrograde.

;sixteen

chapter sixteen: my heads been filled with doubt, emotions been running about.

        I'm tired of not having my own car.

This is probably grand coming from someone that almost killed himself and two others by driving on acid, but ignoring the negatives for the sake of my argument, but I want a car. It's lame as hell taking public transportation everywhere, especially when I'm trying to impress Violet. She doesn't complain, but I want to change it before she does.

Eli just got his learner's, Blake has both a car and a license, and Reed has his license but doesn't have a car. It's only fair that I get my own now. But how I'm going to bring this up to my parents is going to be complicated without a doubt. If I mention it early enough, there's a good chance I could get a car for Christmas, or get a key made so I could share with Caden. (He won't like it, for sure, but my parents would force him no matter how much he argues) I just have to come up with a valid reason to get my license because that's what they made Caden do for his. His reason was getting to and from school, then to his after school job, and because he would be graduating soon, he needed his license if he planned on being a functioning member of society. How I'll spin that into my own case will be difficult since Caden got all the major points.

It's the day before Thanksgiving, which means we're out of school for the next four days. I'm lying between Violet's legs on her bed while we watch American Pie. Her fingers are tangled in my hair, and I'm slowly nodding off to sleep from the feeling. This has pretty much all we've been doing lately; spending time in her bedroom. Besides watching movies, having random conversations, or make out/get a little handsy with each other, there's not much else we do. At this point, to my best estimate, we've been 'dating' for about a month and a half. We've never put a label on it, and I'm guessing that's because we both know what's going on here and we don't need to discuss it.

My complete attention is drawn to the closing of the film, with Finch hitting it off with Stifler's mom, that I almost don't hear Violet's soft voice telling me something. I still focus on the movie, absentmindedly staring at the screen while I mumble a "Huh?".

"I want you to meet my parents." She says abruptly.

I shoot up from my spot and turn to meet her gaze. She looks at me innocently with a blank expression; like she meant what she said.

"What?" I say, taken aback by her request.

She sighs and playfully rolls her eyes, not thrilled with repeating herself for the third time, but she does. "I want you to meet my parents. You know, tomorrow. For Thanksgiving."

It takes me a moment to gather a coherent sentence. Violet wants me to meet her parents? The idea isn't too outlandish, but it's something I wasn't expecting. We've been dating for, as stated before, a month. The whole 'meeting the parents' thing has never come up. But yeah, I knew it was going to come around eventually. I was just hoping I would get a few days in advance to prepare myself. Not just one.

"I'm not so sure, Vi." I say. "I mean, don't you think it's too soon?"

She furrows her brows, "No, why would it be?"

"It's just, you know, we've been hanging around and stuff, sometimes when they're home, and I've never met them. You haven't told them about me, or at least I don't think you have, and I haven't mentioned you to my parents because —"

This isn't what Violet wants to hear, and this leaves her visibly upset. "Casper, if you don't want to meet my parents, all you have to do is say so."

"Babe, it's not —"

"It's fine."

She grabs the remote and looks through the guide to find something new to watch, but in reality she's just flicking through the channels so she doesn't have to look at me. If I had known the Thanksgiving thing meant this much to her, I wouldn't have been so reckless with my answer. I honestly didn't mean any harm by it, it just seems a little soon to be meeting the parents. Maybe it's not as taboo as I think it is to meet the parents after a month. Maybe, just maybe, Violet is a little more serious about this relationship than I am. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm completely committed to this, but I don't necessarily see this going on in the long run. She's graduating this year, and I'm graduating next year. She's going to meet a college guy that's better than me in every way possible. Ghost Boy will just be a thing of the past. And that's not me being pessimistic, that's me being brutally honest.