Identity

Chapter 10

       Chapter 10

      The next morning I woke up to the sound of Mom and Dad quarrelling downstairs. It was almost as bad as listening to two house cats snarling and growling at each other with their claws raking into the other’s flesh. Mom was the one that sounded like she was going to slap the crap out of Dad. When I was yanked out of my dream I awoke in the middle of their argument, and I could only pick out bits and pieces of it.

      They seemed to be fighting about something stupid. Mom was complaining about how Dad “was never there for her,” when really I knew that it was just the opposite. She should’ve been there for Dad. She was the one that was ignoring him and treating him like crap. It was as if she didn’t love him anymore.

   It broke my heart as I listened into their conversation. Just a few months ago, they were living happily together. They would laugh and joke about many things. Now, they fought about everything, no matter what. Ever since Mom changed, she could never stop acting angry at Dad all the time. I wondered why it was taking so long for her to tell him about her plans of divorcing him. It couldn’t be long, now.

    I literally dragged myself out of bed and collapsed to the floor. I didn’t want to get up. I didn’t want to move. Before I met Drake, I was completely sick of every aspect of my life. Nothing really mattered to me back then. My parent’s bickering only made it worse. Drake actually made me believe that I would truly be happy sometime, that I would fall in love.

    I smiled at the thought of Drake. I loved the way he made me feel whenever I saw him, how he made my heart hammer against my chest with excitement. I couldn’t wait for our “date” together tomorrow. I had no idea what we were going to do, and I sure hoped that he was lying when he said that he would bring me to an expensive restaurant and then the jewelry store. Surely one of the other students would catch us and tell every other kid in the school what we were doing. People would then keep an eye on us, checking to see if the rumor they heard about us dating was true.

      Besides, I didn’t need to be pampered or spoiled with his gifts. All I wanted was him to love me back.

      Surely I would have to come up with a good excuse to tell Mom so that she would think I was doing anything other than hanging out with Drake, much less dating him. If she found out about that, she would kill me.  Mom, though, never really cared about what I did after school and usually let me do whatever I wanted. I could probably just go on the date and say that I was going to the store for a while and she’d believe me.

     I crawled to my dresser, reached blindly up and snatched a random pair of jeans and a t-shirt from one of the drawers. It took me another long, five minutes to get dressed. I wanted to take my time so that I could run downstairs and use the excuse of being late to avoid even speaking a word to Mom and Dad. They were still fighting, and I knew that it wouldn’t end for a while.

     After I put all of my crap into my backpack I rushed downstairs and fled the house, unnoticed. On the way I could see Mom and Dad in the living room, standing in front of the couch, pointing accusing fingers at each other. I ignored everything they said until I was outside, and I closed the front door quietly behind me. I could no longer hear their dirty remarks, and I pushed myself forward and down the long driveway that stretched far in front of the house.

     I could hear the rocks crunch under my shoes as I trundled towards the forest that stood on the other side of the road at the end of the driveway. I cut through the trees and finally reached school a while later.

    When I arrived there, hundreds of eyes glued themselves to me as I traveled through the halls, keeping my head low. I tried my best to ignore them, to stop myself from worrying that they thought that Drake and I were together. It was clear that Lucy told someone something, and what she said scattered throughout the entire school last night.