CHAPTER 26
It was exactly seven minutes later when Grey pulled up in front of my house. As I climbed off the bike he whistled lowly, studying our home in surprise. I followed his eyes and glanced up at the house, wondering what he was thinking, trying to imagine what it might look like through someone else’s eyes. A sprawling two-story covered in cultured stone and fancy lighting, with a fully landscaped yard and manicured hedges—yeah, I knew what it looked like. Rich. At least, small-town rich. I bit my lip. Maybe we were rich, but I didn’t really think of myself that way. My parents were, I guess. I wasn’t ashamed of their status or anything, but I didn’t want Grey to think of me any differently. I wanted us to be on the same page, on even keel.
“What does your dad do?” He wondered.
“It’s this new thing. He gets paid to annoy me. See? He’s pretty good at it.”
“I see,” Grey smirked. “So, you’re spoiled.”
“No.” I giggled. I could see the menacing shadow of my father in the window; glaring out at us as we spoke. I tried to ignore him.
“Thanks for coming to get me.” I wrapped my arms around Grey’s neck and smiled. “I had a really great time.”
He nodded and bent down to kiss me. I loved the taste of his lips, every time seemed new, delicious. I never wanted to stop.
“Good luck.” He whispered in my ear. I hated to leave him, but I knew I had to. I sighed, slowly backing away, holding onto his hand for as long as I could before hurrying across the quiet street. The motorbike rumbled to life behind me. I heard it rev up and then peel away, and I knew Grey was gone .
I was nervous, not just about getting in trouble, but about acting sober in front of my parents. I was totally ramped up; everything about me was accelerated. I hoped they wouldn’t notice. I hoped they’d see my twitchiness as anger or frustration.
Dad had the door open before my foot hit the last stair. He glowered out at me, a silhouette in the light streaming through from inside. I bit my lip and slowed my gait, warily brushing by him on my way through the door.
Mom sat in the easy chair beside the couch, her legs crossed formally like this was a business meeting. Dad didn’t sit at all. He followed me in, and stood there, his arms across his chest like he was a bouncer or something. His face was stern and grim.
“Mackenzie.” Mom started. I turned to face her, unconsciously chewing on my lower lip. My heart was hammering in my chest; how could they not hear it? I took a deep breath, trying to act as calm as they appeared.
“Do you remember me telling you to come home right after school?”
“Yeah, I remember,” I admitted.
“So why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. My friend has a bike and he asked me to go for a ride, and I just…I couldn’t resist.”
“You couldn’t resist.” Mom repeated, shaking her head, her face furrowed with disbelief. “I don’t know what’s come over you lately. Are you doing weed?”
“Weed?” I looked at her like the very thought was insulting. “Mom.”
“Sorry.” She sighed and rubbed her hand across her forehead. I almost felt bad for her. Almost. “We just want to help. Can’t you talk to us, tell us what’s going on?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Not anymore, at least. There was a time I was open to talking to my parents, a time I wanted to talk to them. I could remember it clearly. They were always too busy. Dad had to catch a plane, Mom had to sleep so she could work all night. Marcy needed this; Marcy needed that. I’m sure they meant well, working hard to provide for us and everything, but really. How could they expect me to just open up now?
“Are you sure?” Mom prodded. “We’re not the enemy, you know.”
I shrugged silently. They weren’t getting anything from me.
Mom sighed again. “Okay, I tried. Mitch.” She waved her hand at him like he was tagging in or something. “Go ahead.”
Dad nodded. He had on his ‘insurance’ face now, the one he used when he was determined to sell something. “You don’t want to talk? Have it your way.” He shrugged like it didn’t matter. “From here on out, we’re going to have some rules in place, and like it or not, you’re going to obey them.”
I looked up at him, my eyes narrowing defiantly.
“One. No more staying out all hours of the night. You’re going to have a curfew like every other teenager, home by eleven during the week, midnight on weekends.”
“Dad.” I glared. “You can’t be serious. Midnight on the weekends?” I was incredulous. “You can’t just start treating me like a little kid!”
“Then you should stop acting like one.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
I stared at him a moment. Neither of us would back down, we were too similar in temperament. “Ugh, you know what? No.” I stood up and shook my head at them. “No, this is bullshit. You’ve been home all of what—a week, and suddenly you get to judge me?”
“I’m only on rule one, kiddo. Can I keep going?”
“No. No.” My racing heartbeat was suddenly fuelled by more than cocaine. Anger pushed it even harder. I felt a surge of furious adrenaline shoot through my veins, my fingernails pressing into my clenched palms as I struggled to keep it together. Vaguely, I remembered all the stories I’d heard of people freaking out when they were high on coke. I suddenly understood. My emotions were so intense I nearly saw red.
“I don’t give a shit about your stupid rules,” I concluded. “You can’t just ignore me for years and then suddenly start trying to make decisions for me.”
“We never ignored you.” Mom looked appalled by the accusation.
“Really? I’m alone all the time. I could be doing anything, and no one would know. But it never seemed to bother you, leaving me like that. You let me do whatever I wanted to for years.”
“Did you ever think maybe we trusted you?” Dad interjected.
“Trust? Yeah, right.” I scoffed. “That had nothing to do with trust. You just didn’t care. You had your golden child already.”
“What?” Mom sat up in her chair. She stared at me for a long moment, trying to rationalize my words. They seemed to disturb her. “Is that really how you feel?”
I shrugged, staring hard at the red woven area rug beneath my feet. I could’ve proved my point; God knows I had enough material, but why should I bother? There was no way they’d sympathize. I’d just come off sounding immature and jealous and petty and then they’d have even another reason to like Marcy more than me.
“I’m sorry you feel that way. Really sorry.” Mom looked truly repentant, her eyebrows knit together in sincere apology. “That was never our intention; of course it wasn’t. We just felt you were more capable, I guess, of being alone. Marcy was always so dependent on me—but you, you’ve always been braver than her. Always.”
I shrugged again. “Whatever.” I sighed. I could feel myself softening but resolved not to let it happen. Mom wasn’t going to talk her way out of the last few years of total indifference, no matter how sweet her words were now. I drudged up a memory to keep me focused on anger. The memory that worked every time.
It was back when I was chubby. I was wearing a red and black plaid skirt with a white tucked-in blouse, black Mary-Jane shoes, and knee-high white tights. My skirt wouldn’t zip over my tummy. I had to safety-pin it up.
It was my second year playing flute in Band. It was the night of our recital, and I was nervous because I had a solo in one of the songs. I had beat out the other five flautists to win that honour. Grade eight Mackenzie was a bit of an over-achiever.
But Marcy also had a recital that night—she’d taken ballet for most of her life. My parents hadn’t decided who would go where, but one was going to watch Marcy dance, and one was coming to watch me play.
Except neither of them was at my recital. I missed playing a good twelve bars in my desperation to see my mom or dad in the crowd, but they were nowhere to be found. When the time came for my solo, I played an F instead of an E and was so flustered by my mistake I botched the whole thing.
I locked myself in a bathroom stall after, crying hot, humiliated tears. Not just because I messed up the solo—because I knew where my parents ended up.
I was right in the end. When the three of them came to pick me up from school, my parents apologized profusely for their ‘miscommunication’.
They bought me an ice cream on the way home and kept wondering why I was so quiet, why I didn’t tell them how it went. It was something in the way Marcy gloated—the little half-smile she gave me as she flipped back her perfect, shiny hair.
That look said it all: give it up before you totally humiliate yourself, Mackenzie. There’s no way you can compete with me.
I dropped band that year. And advanced science. And the yearbook committee.
“Mackenzie?”
“What?” I came back to the present then, good and justifiably angry, just how I wanted to be. Mom could give me that damn sorry look all night. All I had to do was imagine that safety-pinned plaid skirt for the heat to start flowing.
“Did you hear me? I said we’re willing to be flexible if you cooperate. We can work on a compromise and come up with some reasonable rules.”
“I don’t need rules, Mom. Haven’t you been listening to me at all?”
“No, Mackenzie. We’ve been too lax for too long.” Dad decided firmly. “Mom will switch her shifts if she has to, and I’m going to rearrange my schedule. From now on, one of us will always be here with you.”
I groaned loudly and slumped back against the couch cushions.
“Complain all you want, but this is how it’s going to be.”
I had to shut my eyes. I hated, hated the way he was talking to me, so smug and casually matter-of-fact. I’d show him. Suddenly it was all I could do not to pick up the crystal vase on the coffee table and smash it on the floor. I imagined the delicious shattering noise it would make and clenched my fists again to keep from actually doing it. A deep breath helped calm me.
“No, Dad, it’s not.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said no, Dad, it’s not. Look, you go ahead and make all the damn rules you want.” I chuckled, mirthlessly. “I’m not going to follow them. I haven’t had a curfew since I was like, twelve, and there’s no way I’m going to start now.”
“Mackenzie, don’t be so difficult.” Mom frowned. She was trying to be the rational one among us. “We can come up with a living situation that works for all of us.”
“You know what? I’ve got one.” Dad had lost his careful control, his face hard and angry now. He pointed harshly toward me, stabbing the air with his finger.
“She moves out.”
His icy words hung suspended for a moment, totally unexpected.
“Mitch.” Mom was aghast.
“What? There are rules here. If she doesn’t like them, she can leave.” He motioned to the front door. “We don’t have to put up with this.”
It took me a minute to fully comprehend his words. My dad wanted me to move out. It stung a little at first—but the more I thought about it, the more I realized…it was exactly what I wanted. What I’d always wanted. If I were on my own, I could do my own thing without having to put up with my parents anymore. There’d be no one to try and tell me what to do. No one to fight with and argue with. I could stay out all night, every night. I could be with Grey as much as I wanted to.
Never had my father had a better idea in his whole life.
I couldn’t let on how excited I was by this unexpected turn of events, so I sat quietly on the sofa, acting every part the wounded party .
Mom was more upset with Dad than I was.
“Mitch, you’re overreacting. Let’s just sleep on it. We’ll talk again tomorrow once we’ve cleared our heads. There’s no need to do anything rash.”
“No.” I stood up then, hugging myself bravely. “No. If he wants me to go, I can go.”
They started to argue then, and I slipped away, unnoticed, up the stairs to my room.
The first thing I did was call Charlie. I sat on my mattress and scanned the room idly as the phone rang in my ear, picking out the things I’d take with me when I left.
“Oh, hey baby! How’s it going?”
I could barely hear her with all the noise in the background—loud voices and wild, angry music. “What’s going on over there?”
“The guys are over.”
“Oh, yeah?” I listened harder, frowning. I hated not being there with them, I hated missing out on anything. “That’s cool.”
“Can you come over?”
“I don’t think so, not tonight anyway. My last test is tomorrow.”
“Oh, great. I bet you’re looking forward to those being done.” She was exhaling her smoke; I could hear it over the phone.
“I am. And, you’ll never believe this but…I think I just got kicked out of my house.” I cradled the phone against my shoulder.
“What? Really?”
“Yeah, I think so. Ultimately, I guess the choice is mine, but there’s no way I’d choose to live here with all their new rules.”
“No kidding. Wow, that’s crazy. What? No, Mackenzie got kicked out of her house.” She was speaking to someone there. “I think so. Hey, Mac?”
“Yes?”
“Grey wants to know if you’re okay.”
I smiled. Pure happiness spread through my entire being. “Yes, I’m okay,” I answered. I heard her relaying my message.
“Grey’s wondering if he should come and pick you up.”
I laughed. His concern made my whole night. “Tell him thanks, but that’s probably not the best idea.”
“So, what are you going to do? Where are you going to live?” Charlie wondered when she was back to me.
“I don’t know, I guess I’ve got to find a place. You don’t know of anything, do you? I can’t afford much…” I thought of my measly paycheques at the restaurant. “But once school’s done, I can work full-time maybe?”
“I’ll see if I can figure something out. I’ll let you know if I do.”
“Thanks, Charlie. I should let you go have fun.” I decided wistfully. “I probably won’t be out tomorrow either, I think some of my family’s coming out for grad.”
“Oh right, that’s this Saturday, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Oh, hey.” I bit my lip. “Can I ask another favour? I forgot to get an appointment for my hair and stuff…do you think you could help me get ready?”
“For grad? I’d love to.”
“Oh, thanks, Charlie. I owe you huge.”
“Of course. Hey, I’ve gotta go; it’s time to hit the rails. See you Saturday?”
“Yeah, Saturday. Have a good night, do one of those for me.”
“I already have.” She giggled. “Night, Mac.”
“Night.” I hung up the phone and sighed heavily. I tried not to think of all the fun they were having without me. It didn’t work.