by L. M. Reed
Chapter 9
Dear Diary,
Mom hates me…again.
CeeCee
The two weeks after the funeral were much better than I’d anticipated because Mark had given me a lifeline: my new cell phone. Being able to talk with him once a day made everything right with the world, no matter how short the conversation.
Our arrangement was for me to call him each night in between my nightly run and bedtime. That actually accomplished two things:
Number 1: Mark could keep tabs on me, making sure I was home safely every night.
I had known all along that Mark was uncomfortable with my being out every morning and every evening, even though the place was well patrolled and there were call boxes placed strategically around the trails, but there was nothing he could do about it. That was the main reason he came with me whenever he was home; running wasn’t his favorite type of exercise. Because of my routine phone calls, he slept better at night because he knew I was safe, and I slept better at night because I got to talk him. We were both happy.
Number 2: I could keep him up-to-date on Mom.
The week after the funeral had been full of teacher workdays and in-service. Instead of taking any days off, which everyone would have understood, Mom was at school every day from dawn until dusk getting ready for the new school year. She even worked on Saturday and Sunday that weekend, skipping church, which was a first for her.
Occasionally, in the past, she would miss church, but always because Dad couldn’t go. Even after he was wheelchair bound, once Mom got the handicapped van, they tried never to miss. Although I hadn’t been attending faithfully—alright I had flat refused to go—it felt so wrong for Mom to miss like that.
Assuming she would want to go, and not go alone, I had invited Felicia to come with us. After Felicia had gotten over the surprise, I hadn’t gone to church since she had known me, she agreed.
Then Mom ditched us.
Every day during that first week of school, I would finish my after school weight training and look for Mom’s car in the parking lot to see if she was still there. She wasn’t. I assumed she would be home, but there was no sign of her there either.
Felicia and I would do homework, grab some supper, and then finish whatever homework we had left. If there was anything interesting on the tube, which didn’t happen very often since we only had a handful of channels available through our antenna, we would watch a little of that, then Felicia would head home, and I would head out for my nightly run.
By bedtime, I would be so worn out that I couldn’t keep my eyes open, no matter how hard I tried. In the morning, there would be a note on the fridge saying that she had already left for work. Even Thursday, when Felicia and I had skipped school, and not gotten home until after 11 pm, she was still out somewhere.
Friday, my plan was to call Mark, as usual, after my run, and see what he thought. Should I try to stay awake to catch Mom or wait for him on Saturday?
When I returned home from running, however, I was shocked to see that Mom was already there. I was fully unprepared for that, which would probably explain why our conversation started badly and went downhill from there.
“You’re home.”
Good CeeCee…nice start, I berated myself.
“Did you want something to eat?” she asked casually as she opened the fridge, the same fridge that had housed the only communications from her all week, that same rotten note every morning that simply said “already left for school” and nothing else.
“Do I want something to eat?” I repeated in disbelief. “Do I want something to eat? I haven’t seen you in a week, I have no idea where you’ve been, or what you’ve been doing, and you ask if I want something to eat! You have got to be kidding me!”
“I suggest you change your tone of voice,” Mom warned.
“Change my tone of voice? That’s all you’ve got to say for yourself?”
“No, change your tone of voice and stop repeating everything I say.”
“Okay…I will stop repeating, and change my tone of voice when you explain where you’ve been all stinkin’ week.”
“I am the parent, you are the child. I suggest you go to your room and cool off before we both say something we will regret.”
Through the red mist of anger that seemed to be covering my eyes, I saw her go into her bedroom, and heard her firmly shut and lock the door.
I could barely see to get upstairs, angry tears poured uncontrollably out of my eyes. Slamming my bedroom door didn’t seem to help, either.
Throwing myself on the bed, face down, I let myself bawl until I had no more tears left.
After the crying jag was over, I rolled onto my back and lay there staring at the ceiling, calling myself all kinds of stupid. The stress of not knowing what was going on with Mom all week must have affected me more than I realized.
That was a pretty weak defense, and I knew it. I dreaded telling Mark about it…I sat straight up in the bed, Mark…
The phone rang.
Honestly, I didn’t want to answer it, to own up to what I had done, but my need to talk to Mark outweighed the guilt over my behavior.
Would I ever get anything right? I wondered despairingly.
“Hey,” I could barely talk.
“CeeCee…? Are you ok? What’s going on? Is Mom ok? Why haven’t you called me?”
I don’t think he even took a breath in between questions. I must have had him extremely worried.
“Everything is…fine,” I tried to reassure him.
Of course, he was too smart for that.
“What’s wrong, CeeCee?”
I knew I was going to lose it again. Trying to take deep, calming breaths didn’t help. I burst into tears.
“CeeCee! Answer me,” he demanded, anxiety clearly the overriding emotion in his voice, “is someone hurt?”
“Nooooo,” I bawled.
“At least there’s that,” he replied heavily. “Let it all out, and we’ll try again.”
There was silence on his end while I tried to collect myself. I was thankful to have such a patient, understanding brother. I didn’t deserve him.
“I’m okay now,” I sniffed. “We’re both fine…physically. Oh Mark, I feel so awful. I blew up at Mom again.”
“Should I head that way tonight?”
“No, I don’t want you driving this late,” I sighed. “It’ll keep until tomorrow.”
He was just as worried about Mom as I was, but he would have handled it better than I had.
“I’m sorry, Mark. I really was going to wait until you got here. I didn’t expect her to be home. I should have known I would blow it. I always do.” I finished morosely.
“Don’t beat yourself up, Sis,” Mark said soothingly, “I’ll be there as soon as I can tomorrow. Love you.”
“Love you, too,” I whispered, too drained to do otherwise.
After we hung up, I lay on my bed staring wearily at the ceiling, so worn out that it wasn’t long before I was sound asleep, not even bothering to undress.
Dear Diary,
Mark is coming!
CeeCee
When I awoke, I felt absolutely disgusting. I thought about taking a shower before my run, since I had missed it the night before, but decided to get out of the house as quickly as possible in order to avoid accidentally running into Mom before Mark could get there. I didn’t want a repeat of the previous night, and I wasn’t sure I would be any less angry if faced with Mom’s nonchalance again. I could still feel traces of it…not good.
When I got back to the house, I snuck in quietly, not wanting to wake up Mom, or at least that was what I told myself. I was such a coward sometimes…okay, most of the time.
After my shower, I was in much better shape to face the day. I knew I should go downstairs and eat breakfast, but I was stalling. I wasn’t in that good of shape.
&nb
sp; I would have called Felicia, but she always slept in until ten o’clock on Saturdays. Since she was my only friend, I hesitated to alienate her by depriving her of her beauty rest, not that she needed any.
Beauty rest, that phrase conjured up other memories, memories I had been trying to shove in a closet somewhere in my mind.
That closet door must have burst open, because suddenly I was remembering golden brown eyes, a deep sexy voice—even thinking that word embarrassed me, but it definitely applied—and a soft, sweet, earth shattering kiss…STOP!
I groaned and covered my face with my hands. I had been able to suppress those thoughts and emotions, for the most part, over the past two weeks, but whenever they surfaced, they seemed to take over.
While Felicia and I were watching the Agent Jack Knight movies on my birthday, there had been so many women constantly trying to seduce him the poor guy that it was hard not to think of…well things like that. I had never been much of a moviegoer, always preferring to read and interpret the books myself, rather than having movie directors shove their version down my throat, but I had to admit, those three movies were fun.
Felicia loved saying, “I told you so.” She had been bugging me about those first two movies for a year. She was the movie buff of the century.
Anyway, seeing those movies sparked a desire in me to read the books. The titles themselves cracked me up. Agent Jack Knight: The Beginning was, of course, the first one. After that, it was Agent Jack Knight: China and then Agent Jack Knight: Russia. They were all like that.
Then there was his penname: I. M. Donne. It had to be more than a coincidence that it sounded like I Am Done. From reading the books, I could tell that the author had a sense of humor very similar to mine.
Funny, as much as Felicia loved the movies, it would never cross her mind to read any of the books. In her opinion, books were the spawn of the devil and, being the total opposite of me in almost every way, had probably never read a whole book in her life that wasn’t required for school and it was very possible she had never finished one of those either. She always seemed to be able to find a movie version and use study guides to get her through her English classes.
Hearing a pickup pulling in the driveway, I flew to the window in excitement. Mark must have gotten off about the same time I got up to run, because he was much earlier than I had anticipated.
Looking out the window I suddenly froze. Wait, that wasn’t Mark’s pickup, but it did look vaguely familiar…oh no he didn’t! He couldn’t be here.
NO! I screamed silently. I don’t want him here. He’ll ruin everything! I don’t have any idea how to even act around him…not today of all days.
I was so panicked I didn’t notice Mark waving up at me from the front yard at first. I quickly waved back, and stepped away from the window, careful to avoid looking in Nick’s direction.
What do I do? What do I do? I asked myself repeatedly.
I wanted to run down and throw myself in Mark’s arms as I usually did, but I wasn’t sure how Nick’s presence would affect my behavior.
Breathe, just breathe, I told myself desperately.
There was nothing for it but to go down and act as naturally as possible.
Taking two more deep breaths, I reluctantly opened my door and slowly descended the stairs into Mark’s waiting arms.
