Chapter Twenty-Five Second Level of Grounding
Somehow I manage to get some sleep, but I wake up with red eyes from crying so much yesterday. I check my email right away, but there are no messages from Sadie, Keeley, or Adanna.
Eventually I go downstairs to find some food. My mother is sitting at the breakfast bar drinking tea and reading her iPad. “Don’t bother asking for your phone back,” she says, “because the answer is no.”
She doesn’t even look at me. Her voice is flat.
“Good morning to you too, Mother,” I say. I half hoped that an apology would fix this mess, but it won’t make a difference. Mom’s as stubborn, as determined as I am. And it seems like she’s enjoying torturing me too much to stop.
I don’t say a word as I walk past her to grab an orange from the fruit bowl. I pull out a cutting board and knife and start cutting the fruit to make myself a yogurt and granola parfait.
“I’m surprised you’re not begging,” Mom says.
I don’t look at her but take a glass bowl out of the cabinet. “You said not to even bother asking, so what’s the point?”
“So now you’re finally doing what I say?”
I don’t respond and start layering oranges, vanilla yogurt, and chocolate granola in a bowl.
“I’m not enjoying this, you know, Meera,” Mom says, because apparently she can’t stop herself from throwing salt into my wound.
“But you’ve left me no choice. You’ve done nothing but give me attitude since you got to Cherrybridge.
It’s like you’ve become a completely different person this summer.
Drinking? Sneaking out of the house to see a boy? This isn’t like you, Meera.”
Finally I turn to face her, glaring. “How the heck do you know what’s like me or not? Yeah, you’re technically my mother, but you worked so much that I was raised more by your parents and my friends’ parents than by you.”
Mom’s nostrils flare as she takes in a deep breath. “I was working to give you a better life than I had. So you could have all the things I couldn’t have because—”
“I know, I know, because you were a teen mother.” Besides my mom, no one but me—the reason why she became a teen mom—could be more aware of that fact.
She’s silent a beat longer before sighing, long and tired. “Yes. I had to work. I was alone. And you were always self-sufficient, always a good girl.”
“If I was such a good girl and you trusted me to be one, why did you force me to leave my home after one mistake? I would think that you, of all people, would understand that one mistake shouldn’t affect my whole life.
” I feel my voice rising in volume, but I can’t help it.
Why is it so hard to get Mom to understand?
“Meera, I wanted you here for one summer! You’re acting like I put you in jail! And for someone who claims to not want to be in Cherrybridge, you’ve certainly made the most of your time here.”
I glare at her. Yeah, I met Noah here, and I’m really, really glad I did, but that doesn’t change the fact that she went back on her promise that I could stay in Toronto after she moved in with Jason.
“After you were arrested,” Mom continues, “I knew this was best for you. But you didn’t trust me.
Even after you made friends and even a boyfriend here, you were still determined to make sure I knew how much you didn’t want to be with me.
I wanted to get closer this summer.” Mom’s voice trembles a bit.
“How could we have gotten closer?” I say, voice cracking.
“You’re still never here! Always planning a party for Jason, or at a tennis lesson, or having lunch with Sadie’s mom.
Now volunteering at the hospital! I still barely see you!
” I shake my head, feeling tears pooling in the corners of my eyes and begging them to stay put.
“You didn’t bring me here so we could have mother-daughter time; you brought me here so you could pretend to be a perfect mother to your new rich husband and his family.
You want to parade me around in dresses that aren’t even remotely my style, by the way, but they match yours so you can pretend we’re so close.
You brought me here so you could live out your perfect-society-housewife dreams, and me dating a tattooed musician is damaging that.
You don’t actually care about me being happy.
I’m your prop this summer.” I wipe a rogue tear.
Mom stares at me for several long minutes, not saying a word.
Did I go too far? Maybe. But it’s the truth.
If she wanted to get closer, why hasn’t she tried to spend time with me, other than that one day we went shopping for dresses for the campaign events?
Why hasn’t she ever asked me about my relationship with Noah, instead of only judging him based on how he looks or where he lives?
“You say I’ve changed since coming here,” I say. “Well, so have you. You used to be independent. You used to care about everyone being treated fairly. You were so proud to have earned enough money to buy your own place. But now all you care about is what the country club wives think of you.”
She takes one long look at me before she shakes her head and finally looks down at her iPad.
“You’re not getting your phone back, and consider yourself grounded until the end of the summer.
Which will be spent here—in Cherrybridge,” she says.
“And you’ll still be here in September. I’ll look into transferring you to Randell Academy on Monday. ”
I shake my head, disgusted, and grab a spoon to take my breakfast parfait upstairs.
When I get to my room, I check my email, and there are messages from both Keeley and Adanna.
Keeley apologizes for posting the video and calling Noah my boyfriend, saying she didn’t know it was a secret.
Adanna offers to have her parents call my mom to try to get her to calm down.
And both say they wish they could be with me.
I thank them for their support, as always, and tell them how much I appreciate them. I tell Keeley that Noah loved her arrangement of his song.
An email from Sadie appears while I’m writing to my Toronto friends.
She asked around and got Noah’s phone number, and texted him.
She told him that my mother took my phone, that she has the spreadsheet we were working on, and that she’ll send it to him if he sends her his email address.
But she hasn’t heard back from him. She tells me she’ll email me as soon as he responds.
I exhale. Why isn’t Noah responding to Sadie? I wonder if Mom or Jason did talk to Noah or his dad and told him to stay away from me and my family. There’s nothing I can do right now but wait to hear from Sadie. I’m stuck.
I end up spending the rest of the day in my room taking pictures of Rosie and editing them on my computer, which is actually more engrossing than I thought it would be.
Photography has always been my favorite way to calm my worries, and pet photography requires a lot of focus.
But I was able to get some great pictures.
Heck, if my architecture dreams fall through because of this mess, I can probably make a living as a pet photographer.
I feel nauseous at the thought of giving up my dreams. This curse really is ruining my life.
Mom doesn’t call me down for dinner, but when I smell spaghetti, I go downstairs.
She and Jason are eating at the dining table, but she doesn’t say a word to me at all.
Jason glances at me, but Mom ignores me completely.
I make myself a plate of food and take it up to my room.
I check my email, and Sadie has messaged me, but only to tell me that Noah hasn’t responded. He leaves all her texts on read.
Maybe his dad took his phone? Or his brother did? Or maybe he wants nothing to do with me anymore. Maybe he decided that my family and I are too much to deal with. Or maybe he never really loved me and was using me. A prickle stings behind my eyes.
No, I’m spiraling. I trust him. He wasn’t playing me. That’s not who Noah is.
Sunday is pretty much the same as Saturday.
No word from Noah. Mom and Jason don’t speak to me.
Sadie emails a few times, telling me to hang in there.
She’s been talking to her parents, hoping they’ll convince my mother to let me out of this house arrest. She has also asked around for any gossip about the Jacobs family but hasn’t heard anything.
She and Liv even went to Donut Den for me, but no one there—including Clara—had seen or heard from Noah all weekend.
By Monday morning nothing has changed. Mom doesn’t say a word to me when I go down for breakfast. She’s wearing her tennis clothes, so I assume she has a lesson at the club.
I wonder how long we’re going to keep up this silent treatment.
And I wonder why she doesn’t send me home to Toronto if she doesn’t care at all if I’m here or not.
But I can’t go home now. Not without talking to Noah.
He’s probably at CROP right now. What are they all doing?
Are they finishing the decorative painting on the bandstand?
Maybe planting some perennials around the base like we planned.
Is he goofing off with Ash? Is Kennedy in one of her excitable moods, or is she grumpy?
It’s officially the last week of CROP, and I hate that I’m missing it.
Which is funny, considering how much I didn’t want to be there in the first place. I wonder if any of them miss me.
I pick up Rosie, and she starts purring right away. “You’ll actually miss me if I leave, won’t you?”
She purrs louder, and I bury my face in her soft fur.
Later in the afternoon someone knocks on my door. “Meera!” Mom yells.
I open the door, holding my cat.
“Sadie’s here to see you,” Mom says before turning and walking away.
“I thought I was grounded,” I say. “You said no one was allowed to come see me.”
She doesn’t turn around as she walks down the stairs. “I said no friends. Sadie is family. She’s in the kitchen.”
Maybe Noah finally responded to Sadie?