Seventh Sense

t h r e e || really don't care

dedicated to @ESchwarz because her stories are completely fabulous and I'm a fangirl for her. To the side is Greg Grundberg, who plays Kerissa's Dad.

“Even if the stars and moon collide”
–Demi Lovato, Really Don’t Care

“We need to talk about this!” My dad’s in another one of his weird parent moods. I don’t blame him; he is worried about me, after all.

I wish I can say that after standing up to the Pozens, I’m a changed person. Really, the opposite happened. I became closed off; hermit-like. My friends are worried but my parents… they’re terrified.

“Everything’s fine! You’re overreacting.” It’s a shitty attempt at damage control.

We’re in the middle of dinner and it’s yet another night I spend eating everything in sight. Usually, I’m too busy prattling about my day to eat. Come to think of it, the whole week has been like this.

Add that to the list of things I can’t explain.

“You haven’t been sleeping, talking or even smiling. All you do is eat!” Wow, thanks Dad.  “Is this what girls do when they’re depressed?” As he lists, he sticks out his fingers to count.

“I’m not depressed,” is the only defense I offer. There is no half-assed excuse I can use to calm his spirits. I’m not even creative enough to make up a story of how I’ve been cursed by a witch who’s jealous of my long brown hair and sarcastic nature.

But let’s be honest, my brown hair could never be the object of envy.

I smile sarcastically and take a bite of an apple in the fruit bowl. Why we even have a fruit bowl, I don’t know. We aren’t that family.

“Is this about Nathan?” Dad asks me. He’s completely oblivious to how much I’m done with that. “I thought you two were over.”

“We are,” I groan. This is worse than when a little grade five Kerissa came home asking about puberty when it was taught in class. Such an idiot. Instead of asking my mom, like a person with a pulse would do, I went to Dad. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I definitely got a lot more than I bargained for.

“Well then, what’s up with your emo phase?” I raise a finger before going to the stove and screaming into the empty pot. It doesn’t make as much noise as I think it would. When I sit back down, Dad looks at me like I’d just grown a third head. I raise my lips into a sweet smile.

“I’m just really stressed about school and stuff.” I pretend like I hadn’t just yelled into a pot.

“Maybe your mother should deal with this.” The room gets colder. Mom is not as lenient as Dad. Not even close. She yells and screams until I give her what she wants to hear. It’s never pleasant and Dad knows it.

Like it’s planned from something below, my stomach chooses now to growl one of the strangest sounds I’ve heard. There has to be a leviathan making nest because I’ve already eaten my body weight in all the food in the fridge.

“That’s it! We’re taking you to a doctor.” And that’s what it’s like living with parents who are on your back all the time. My mom makes quite a fuss about the whole ordeal as the rest of the night is ruined. I spend my Monday night getting a full body checkup when the doctor confirms that there is nothing wrong with me.

Physically, anyway.

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“Did they actually do that?” Rachel is close to dying of laughter. “Your parents are crazy... In the best way possible.” Rachel redirects, changing to connotation to something to be proud of, which, I guess, it is.