A Sky Full of Stars

CHAPTER 20

I walked home at a snail's pace feeling lightheaded from all the tag but I didn't regret a moment of it. These past few months I had really come to terms with my full self. I had realized that I was more than just an ailing kid who everyone had pity on. I reached home exhausted from all the physical exertion. Mom was sitting on the couch and reading one of the many magazines that she had subscribed to.

"What took you so long, Ambs?" she asked, curious to know what I had been up to over the past few hours.

"I was at the park mom, I met one of my friends from support group and I played with her friends, and I kinda lost track of time," I said, grabbing a bottle of cold water from the fridge and lying down on the couch beside my mom.

"Who was this friend?" mom asked with one eyebrow raised.

"This friend was a girl whose name was definitely not Noah," I said rolling my eyes.

"I was kidding Ambs, I trust you okay. You're free to make your own decisions but we've been alive so much longer than you and all we want is the best for you."

"Yeah, yeah enough of the lecture, let's watch something," I said, picking up the TV remote from the coffee table. My mom left the magazine and we watched America's Got Talent, because there was no other decent show airing at that time. We ate dinner rather quietly. This had now become a routine, talking only about non-controversial topics and politics. I wanted to go to my room and text Noah but sadly that would have to wait until dinner was over. Dad was going to be here for another month so there was no escaping him. I was literally trapped here. I wanted to be free and live my life on my own terms but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. After dinner I ran up to my room and texted Noah again:

Hi, you've not been replying to my texts, is something wrong?

I didn't expect him to text me back, so I closed my phone and got out my sketch book. Over the years I'd filled many sketchbooks with my designs and most of my bookshelf consisted of my journals and sketchbooks. I took out an empty one and started sketching. I drew some designs that were inspired by the clothes of some models in my mom's magazines. When I was adding the finishing touches to the last design my phone rang. I checked immediately half expecting Noah's name to pop up and to my surprise it was him. I picked up.

"Hey Ambs!" he said.

"Hi, I was so worried about you,"

"I'm sorry I had um, some urgent work, I was busy the whole day."

"It's okay and I can't call. At least not right now. Can we text instead?" I said trying to be very quiet so that my parents wouldn't hear me.

"Yes, okay sure," he said and then I cut the call. Just when he texted me, I heard a knock on my door. Without haste, I hid my phone under one of the many pillows on my bed and asked whoever was knocking to come in.

"Can I talk?" said my dad. I was expecting my mom. My dad never really gave me room visits.

"Uh, yeah sure," I said clearing my bed and making space for him to sit.

"Look Ambs, I know that you've been angry at your mom and I," he said, holding my shoulder which kind of hurt as my body was still sore from the running but I let it be.

"No, there's nothing like that," I lied.

"Okay, I just want to tell you that something like this happened to me when I was younger and I thought maybe telling you about it would help you understand why we're asking you to listen to us." "Okay?"

"When I was in college, I think it was my second year, I met this girl, Susie. She was beautiful, attractive and funny. I thought I'd never find a better girl than her. We had biology together and slowly we got close. Her friends and her would always be partying, they were borderline reckless but my love for her blinded me. So, one day after biology, she asked me to join her friends at the lake behind our school and I agreed. The party was a standard college kid party; there were drinks and drugs, everything any college kid enjoys and honestly it was fun. Soon we became romantically involved, what you kids call dating and I went for all these parties. My grades dropped drastically and at that time I didn't even care about that."