The Disappointment Kid (Completed)

20

Well, like I said before: Little white lies are not only acceptable, but necessary if you want to retain your friends – and your life, I suppose. And by 'retain your life' I mean that the complete and naked truth might actually get you killed. Not everybody takes kindly to the truth. Not even you yourself. So, we lie not only to others, but also to ourselves. It's a survival technique. To cut a long story short: I cared. I cared about what my mother said a lot. Stupid, I know. Knew it even then. That's why I lied to myself and to everybody else who bothered to ask.

In actual fact, I was scared to go home. For many reasons. I was scared of my mother's vitriol. I was scared of her hitting too close to home with it. I was also terrified of my reaction.

It was late when I reached our house. My mother had to be home by now. Still, I couldn't help the sigh that escaped when I saw her car in the driveway. Hope's the last to die and all that.

When I pulled the front door key out of my pocket, I realised that my hands were shaking. For a second, I just stood there and looked at my trembling hands. Then I remembered the anger she generated in me. I pushed the anxiety and the sadness aside and tapped into this anger again. Like I said before, a necessary survival technique.

I stuck the key into the lock with all my might and crashed through the door as noisily as I could. I was damn well not going to hide like some fugitive. If my mother wanted to crush me, let her try.

"Katherine, would you please come in here! We need to talk."

My mother's voice washed over me, threatening to pull me under, but I held onto the rock of anger like a drowning woman fighting the current of a major stream.

I plastered a sneer on my face and entered the living room, where I found my mother sitting in front of the TV. Where was Dad? Well, I wasn't going to ask. I wasn't going to show any weakness.

"Please, sit down."

"Is this going to be like one of your business meetings?" 

Despite my rapid heartbeat, I looked her straight in the eyes, my gaze steady and my back ramrod straight.

I didn't sit down.

"Can we be reasonable for five minutes, please, Katherine?"

I laughed.

"You can try if you want, Mother."

"I don't want to fight, Katherine. You are my daughter. You are 17, nearly an adult. Life is difficult for you. I realise that."

She sighed audibly, from today's perspective I reckon for dramatic effect, then she carried on, "But you could make it so much easier if you had the good sense to listen to me. I have so much more life experience than you. You will eventually find that going to university is the right thing to do. You will find that watching your figure and showing some self-restraint will make you happy in the long run. You will find that it is normal to be confused about everything when you are 17, including your sexuality. But you will also find that it is detrimental to your future to make these things public. It is detrimental to your future to associate with the wrong people."

When I heard the opening of my mother's speech, my jaw nearly dropped. Had the earth shifted on its axis, and my mother would actually utter an apology?

Then my jaw froze, and so did my heart. Because,clearly, there was no apology. And while my inner Miss Stupid-and-Gullible had at first still believed that my mother was genuinely concerned about me, even that little shred of hope was crushed with the great finale of her speech. But I was a glutton for punishment, I think, because I still asked, "What people?"

"The losers, the misfits, Katherine. I'm talking about kids whose parents are unemployed, those who come from broken homes and those who even God cannot accept."

God?

"Are you talking about the God of Sunday Brunch, Mother? Do you mean people in trainers then? Or those wearing caps? I don't know. I never go to these fine establishments you frequent on a Sunday morning with your fellow consumption worshippers."

Trying to hold back tears of anger and rage, I carried on, "I'm positive you don't mean the God of Christianity. I cannot for the life of me remember the last time you went to any church service, Christian or otherwise. So, I'm pretty positive that that cannot be your concern. But I'm equally sure that you will enlighten me promptly, and I am so looking forward to it."

I swear I saw my mother's hand twitch, but she reined herself in.

"Why do you turn everything into a fight, Katherine? I just want to help, want to make sure that you make the right choices in life. I really don't want to fight with you all the time. I love you."

There was something in my mother's voice. She sounded genuine, I guess. That realisation stunned me. My father had told me that my mother truly cared. My sister had said the same thing. Maybe there was something to their conviction. It sliced my heart wide open, and I felt tears welling up behind my eyes, this time tears of pain. Suddenly, there was so much hate next to so much love, fighting for space inside my heart, that this time I stormed out of the room and out of the house like a bat out of hell. I didn't know where I was going or what I was going to do when I got there. All I knew was that I needed to be gone, that I needed to escape the crushing pain that I was feeling.

'I love you.' My mother hadn't said that in a long time. I loved her, too. She was my mother, for God's sake. But I also hated her, hated her with a vengeance. How did you make sense of shit like that?