Dedicated to Tay for being what I would essentially call my fandom sister. I think she's the only one out of all my closest friends who's in most of the fandoms I'm in.
Chapter 7 : Breaking Free
I sat there beside Mom, sighing dreamily. Young Dad sounded like the kind of guy I want to end up with.
“Oh Mom…I always thought you and Dad were cliché being high school sweethearts but now I know you weren’t exactly Cliché Couple of The Year.”
“Yeah your Dad is wonderful. I wish I had stayed that night, that’s my biggest regret of all. I almost lost your Dad that night I ran off.” She got that faraway look again. I started to panic when I remember I had to stay calm for her. This place was clearly not doing her any good. I place my hand on top of hers to get her attention.
“Mom… I think we need to get out of here.”
“Kiddo, I already told you, they won’t let me go unless I take therapy.” She sighed tiredly, and all of a sudden she looked really tired. I give her a cheeky smile,
“I guess we’re going have to break out then.” From daughter to mother, we shared a mischievous look. Then I started helping her out of bed. She changed back to her normal clothes and we went on stealth mode, avoiding nurses and doctors. Finally once we reached the door, we full on sprinted for it and for effect, and Mom started belting out the lyrics to Breaking Free.
We’re breaking free!
Soaring
Flyin'
There’s not a star in heaven that we can’t reach
We’re trying
But we’re breaking free
Oh, we’re breakin’ free.
We did it! We broke out of the hospital without getting caught. We reach the Impala and Mom stops short,
“Hey, Kiddo, do you think you could let your old lady take the Impala for a spin one last time?” Of course she could, it was essentially her car. I threw her the keys and got in the front seat. When Mom got in, she was practically bouncing in her seat. Then she started rummaging through the glove compartment.
“Ah ha!” she said loud and proud as she pulled out a dusty old CD. She put it the player and hit play. The familiar tune of Highway to Hell by AC/DC started to play. She started the engine and drove home, feeling like Sam and Dean.
We reach home and we see Dad’s car parked in the garage. I gesture to Mom to keep silent so that we could surprise Dad.
“Dad! I’m home!” I call out.
“I’m in the study!” he called back. Mom and I climbed up the stairs quickly and made our way to the study. I open the door to the study and Dad’s back facing me. Mom is still behind me.
“Are your siblings with you, Elle?” he asks.
“Nope. Blake’s taken Bianca out, Q has Art Club and Dyl has got Drama but I’ve got someone else here.” I could barely keep the excitement out of my voice. He turns around and drops his pen when he sees Mom.
“Skylar? What are you doing out of the hospital?” He couldn’t even hide the shock in his voice and he was frowning deeply. The kind of frown he gives us when he’s disappointed with us.
“Gee, it’s nice to see you too, Dylan.” Mom’s voice filled with sarcasm and amusement at the same time. She walked towards to Dad and gave him a sweet kiss and hug.
“It’s great to be back home. Dylan? Are you alright? You seem tensed.” Mom asked worriedly. I was about to leave the room to give them space when I noticed Dad’s rigid composure. He seemed really stressed. He closed his eyes and pinched his nose bridge. Whenever he did that, it was never a good thing.
“Skylar. You’re not supposed to be here. I specifically told the doctors not to let you go until you took therapy.” He said calmly. Mom looked like she was about to blow. The tension was so thick in the room, I could almost touch it.
“YOU WHAT?” she yelled. Before Dad could respond, she punched him in the face. He faltered back a little holding on to his nose. It was bleeding. Woah Mom. I have never seen my mother this furious with anyone before. My dad was the only person she always got along with. Suddenly I felt 5 years old again and witnessing my parents fight for the first time. I wanted to burst out crying and yell at my parents not to fight. Honestly, it was between the two of them and I had no right to interfere. I hid behind the door, listening in.
I could hear Mom trying to calm herself down.
“I’m sorry I hit you. Here, clean yourself up. You had no right, Dylan. No right at all to essentially force me into seeing a therapist. You know I’ve seen shrinks all my life and you know how much I hate them! I don’t get why you’d do this to me.” Her voice was cracking; she felt betrayed and I could hear her heartbreaking. How could Dad do this? Doesn’t he love her? He knew this would hurt her, yet he did it. He knew Mom better than anyone else.
“You have to grow up, Skylar. We aren’t teenagers anymore. You can’t treat our kids like they are your friends. You’re their mother not their suicidal best friend. It is about time you get professional help.”
“Professional help? Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve survived this long without therapists because all this while I had something even anti-depressants got nothing on this thing. I had family; I had you, the kids and Qis. That was enough for me. I was a good mom, I only reverted back into acting like a teenager after they turned 16, because they needed their parents to be their friends. I didn’t want to end up like my parents.” Cue the angry sigh. I heard footsteps; one of them must be walking towards the other.
“I need to know you’re going to stable. I can’t having you relapsing back into your depression again, especially in front of the kids.” His voice was void of emotion, could he be anymore of a jerk?
“You know what? Go fuck yourself, Dylan. I have no idea what happened to you, this person here is definitely not my Dylan, the Dylan I fell in love with. This person you are now is a disgusting asshat. You want to know why I did what I did last week? It was the day Wes and Cassandra got married and earlier that day I got a call from Wes. I wanted to tell you but you were busy and I just felt so overwhelmed, I took the bloody pills, okay?! I never meant to overdose myself, you jerk. I’m done with this conversation.”
She walked out the room and burst into tears. I quickly made my way beside her and started comforting her. As I brought her to the Telly Room, she kept sobbing and repeating one sentence over and over again.
“What did I ever do wrong? What did I ever do wrong?” I rubbed her shoulder soothingly.
“Mom, you didn’t do anything wrong. Dad’s being asshat. Come on, sit down and have a cuppa.” I helped her sit on the huge couch and went to get the Doctor Who DVD; Doctor Who always has a way of cheering this family up. I put it in the player and went to take a seat next to Mom. She started crying again.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
“That was your Dad’s Doctor Who collection. Ohh I miss the old Dylan.” She blew her nose and started the waterworks once again. Oh dear, I felt like a parent. I continued to comfort her, soon enough she had calmed down and we were both snuggled on the couch watching the Ninth Doctor being his sassy, charming self.
After watching the first few episode, Mom had fallen asleep on my lap. She looked so peacefully, I didn’t want to wake. I spoke too soon; my siblings came into the Telly Room really noisily but somehow didn’t wake Mom. I shushed them, they tiptoed over to me and started whispering all sorts of questions.
“What’s going on?”
“Why’s Dad so pissed?”
“Has Mom been crying?” I waved them all away because I didn’t want to wake Mom until Blake came to me with my cell,
“Bianca’s calling.” I huffed. Of course I needed to pick up the phone, we haven’t officially patched things up. So I left the other three to take care of Mom while I went up to my room to take the phone in private.
“Hullo?”
“Hey Vanellope. How have you been?”
“Elle is fine. I’m not too good, my parents got into the biggest fight ever. I’ll be honest, I’ve never felt more scared.”
“Oh gosh, are you alright? They didn’t hit you or anything?”
“No, of course not. My parents would never to do that. Anyways, enough about me, how was your date with my brother and how is it going with Thomas and Henry?”
“Blake was absolutely charming today and we stated our boundaries and I told him if he wants to be my boyfriend, he can’t hurt intentionally or else I’ll rip out his balls.”
“Ah, that’s my girl.” I said approvingly. “What about your brothers?” I asked, anxiously.
“Thomas, Henry and I talked it out after school and Thomas’s coming home this weekend. Henry forgave me for being such a pain the pass few years. So the Smith siblings are back, it’s all good now.” She sounded happy. Good then, my job here is done.
“That’s great then. Quick question, why do you guy hate each other so much?” I asked, feeling just a tad curious as to why the Smiths could hate each other while the Carsons embrace having siblings.
“Well I guess it’s the way we were brought up. Our parents always fought and we spent our entire childhood listening to them screaming their heads off at each other. Its so obvious, Mother and Father never love each other, God knows why they even got together. I also found out a couple of years back from my Mother’s journal that Henry and I were accidents. Mother and Father were only planning to have Thomas and stop at one child to spite an old friend of hers. When the plan worked, my parents celebrated, if you know what I mean and then they ended up with Henry. A while after Henry was born, they went clubbing and they did it again and since Mother was still fertile after giving birth to Henry, she got pregnant with me.”
“Wait, if they didn’t want any other kids, why not just get an abortion. I mean thank God they didn’t, otherwise I wouldn’t have met you all but your parents sound awful enough to go through with abortion.”
“Father’s against abortion. Actually one of their fights was about that. Mother was complaining about having too many kids. I don’t get why; Henry and I are saints at home because we ignore each other and stay in our rooms. So she was complaining on why they couldn’t have aborted Henry or something. Father started yelling at her that she’d even think of that. Father, unlike Mother, likes us kids. He’s busy most of the time being an English professor but he at least pays attention to us whenever he could while I’m pretty sure Mother doesn’t even know how old we are. I’m sure she stopped taking count the moment we turned 7.”
“That’s awful, Bianca. You know what, I want you and your brothers to come over to my place the next week or so for dinner and then I can show you guys how it feels like to be a part of a real family.” I invite her over. It’s killing three birds with one stone. 1) I get to have Bianca over for dinner, 2) Mom and Dad can see how wonderful Thomas and Henry can be and 3) If Mom and Dad have patched things up by the next week, this dinner would be the perfect excuse for them to be civil to one another.
“Aren’t your parents fighting though?” She sounded concerned. I shook my head before I remembered that I was on the phone.
“Yeah, I’m planning to have the dinner make them patch things up if they don’t resolve it in the next week.” I hope she doesn’t think I’m shallow for killing three bird in one stone in such a way.
“That’s actually a good plan.” I let out a breath in relief. Then I heard shuffling on her part, “Henry’s here, he’s asking about you. I swear both of my brothers are in love with you!” In the moment, I was so glad she couldn’t see me. I started blushing furiously. I never had guys fancy me before so having two guys fancy me was new. Not that I believed Bianca with her accusation; it felt nice to imagine it though.
“I highly doubt they would even think of fancying me. Come on, Bianca, I’m the thing boys think of to get rid of their boners.” I tell her knowingly. I wait for her to get the reference when a voice in the back shouted out,
“ELLE, YOU JUST QUOTED YOUR MOM!” No surprise that it was Henry. I was frankly embarrassed that Bianca had put me on loudspeaker.
“I can’t believe you put me on loudspeaker. Hi Henry, aren’t you the smart one.” I rubbed my forehead, still blushing as red as a firetruck. I heard Bianca squeal and clap her hands.
“Either way, you’re going to be my sister-in-law. YAY! Henry’s odds are looking better than Thomas’. Unless you go for older guys, which is totally fine, then Tommy’s odd are better.” She kept on gushing like that for another minute before I got tired and yelled,
“SHUT UP!” it echoed which meant Henry got tired of her crap as well and the fact we yelled it at the same time, sent her into another fangirl frenzy. I groaned. Then there was another set of shuffling and a bit of screaming on Bianca’s side, finally someone picked up the phone and started talking,
“Hey Elle, it’s Henry. I stole Bianca’s phone and soon enough she’s going to hunt me down.” For some reason, my heart picked up its pace.
“Hey Henry…” Suddenly the air between us felt awkward, all thanks to Bianca’s proclamation. He cleared his throat,
“Just so you know, Bianca was teasing you. I’m not sure about Thomas but um if you’re worried about me fancying you, you don’t have to worry.” He sounded indifferent…sort of disappointed.
“Oh..” I really tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice but failed miserably. I heard even more shuffling and now swearing, then I heard Bianca’s voice,
“AH HA! Brother mine, you shall always fall surrender to me! Mwahahhaahhahh!” She was one hardcore girl.
“Hey Elle, had fun talking to your future husband? Go away, Henry, can’t you see I’m talking to my sis-in-law?”
“You go all out, don’t you?”
“Don’t you know it, sis. Anyways Henry’s bugging me so I got to go before he dies of Elle deprivation.”
“I HEARD THAT, BEE!” Henry yells in the back before Bianca hangs up. I giggle to myself before putting away my cell. That was a fun conversation.
I was, however, left more confused than ever about the Smith brothers. If it wasn’t obvious enough, I sort of have a crush on both of them. There’s Thomas who was older, confident and just simply fun but he was also my teacher and I’ll have to wait till graduation. On the other hand, there was sweet, innocent Henry who liked me for who I am and even though he was a fan of my Mom, he didn’t spend all his time obsessing over Mom and had actual conversations with me.
I pushed all thoughts of them to the back of my mind and went to check up on Mom. I checked her study, which had a pull out bed; she spends days there sometimes when she’s working on a book. Sure enough she was there, sound asleep on the bed. Her tear-streaked face broke my heart. I went to her bedside and sat with her for a while. Ever since I was young, Mom’s presence always gave me this strange sense of comfort. I would sit on her lap for hours and watch her type away on her computer and I’d never get bored. Sitting here next to her, I could hear the sound of her typing away just like all those years ago.
Feeling curious, I went over to her desk, opened up her computer. It asked for password. Damn, I didn’t know her passwords. I knew her default one; Dad’s name but I knew for a fact that her laptop had a different password, to keep everyone out. I tried several passwords.
‘Vanellope’ WRONG.
‘Blake’ WRONG.
‘Qistina’ WRONG.
‘Skylar Carson’ WRONG. Then I noticed the hint button, I clicked it and a picture of Tom Hiddleston popped up. Not just any picture; it was the one where he was wearing the bandana looking like a rapper. Typical.
‘T. Hiddles’ I typed the password with ease and I had access to all her works. I looked at her desktop and her wallpaper was outrageous. Three words : Gay Fictional Characters. She had created a montage of all her favourite character and basically…awkward. I tried to ignore the wallpaper and looked at her folders. I found the one I was looking for.
Skylar’s Projects. I opened the folder and I knew I had hit the mother load. Over 50 stories. Most of them were unfinished except for the two she had published. Then this particular title had caught my eye.
Always Be Together. It was the only one that had been updated recently. It was updated just before she overdosed her. Oh lord. I opened the document and read through. I spent the next hour reading and then it stopped, in the most climatic scene of all. Thanks so much for the cliffhanger, Mom. I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt my cheeks wet. It was a heartbreakingly great book, its no surprise I’m crying over it. As far as I could tell, it was based off her friendships with Wes and Cassandra but this story was much more heartbreaking. It was about a girl who had two best friends (basically Mom, Cassandra and Wes) but the only difference was this book concentrated mostly on how their friendships developed and blossomed in their own way and then during the last few moments of the book, it showed how they betrayed her and how painful it was for her. Mom had written so well I could feel the girl’s pain. Then the book ends in her standing on top of a bridge and the two friends come to stop her.
It just fucking ends there. That is so not fair. I deserved a ending. I closed the laptop and walked over to Mom. I planted a kiss on her forehead before leaving and heading to my room. I laid in bed for the next hour, feeling agitated at the ending I got. I couldn’t stop thinking about the book. It kept circulating through my head for the next few days as well.