Long Live

Chapter Seven

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.  - Theodore Roosevelt

     The drive home with my parents was horrible. No one said a thing, but I could feel the disappointment in the air. They hadn’t said much at the police station, but I knew once we arrived home I’d be getting the lecture of a lifetime. I had gotten off with just a warning since it was my first offense, but it did go on my record. Dylan and Crispin were completely free to go, since I said they had nothing to do with my actions. Through the whole dismissal my mother had not said a word. My father had done all of the talking. Dylan’s mother had flipped out on both of them, and glared at them when she had heard I had taken full responsibility. I had a feeling she knew we were lying, but she had said nothing.

     Once we arrived home, my mother took her time getting out of the car, as did I. I wished I could just crawl into a hole and die right then and there. I did not want to hear the lecture I had coming. I knew there would be a calm, cold accusing tone, then the yelling, then the disappointed sigh, ending with the dramatic walk away off into their bedroom to discuss my punishment further.

     “I don’t even know where to begin,” my mother said, once we were seated at the kitchen table. I sitting across from both my parents. “What were you even thinking? You could have killed yourself! And those boys.” She didn’t even look me in the eye.

     “I know,” I mumbled.

     “If you know then why did you do it?” she asked, a desperate sound in her voice.

     “I just wanted to see what it was like.”

      “To kill yourself?!” she yelled. And now the yelling begins.

      “No! To drive! To be free! To not have my every move being watched,” I said, my voice cracking.

      “So driving without a license then running away from the police is an expression of freedom?” she questioned. My father just looked at his hands.

     “No! I just wasn’t thinking. I panicked, okay? Don’t you ever panic?”

      “Not to the point I’m running from the law.”

      I just stared at her. This woman was my mother. There was a time where she would have just been relieved I was alive and hadn’t killed myself or anyone else, then punished me and questioned my actions; but she didn’t care that I was okay. She was just mad because this was going to make her look bad.

     “How come I have never heard of these boys you were hanging out with?” my mother asked, changing the subject. Her cold tone was back.

     “Because you never care to hear about my life,” I grumbled under my breath.

     “What was that?” she asked, sharply.

     I sucked in my breath debating if I should repeat myself.

     “Because you never want to hear about my life, Mom!” I yelled, “you’re always saying ‘Aislinn, don’t disappoint me again with a bad grade’ ‘Aislinn, you shouldn’t be hanging out with people like that, just concentrate on your grades. There’s time for all this later on in life when you’re successful.’ ‘Aislinn— ”

      “I think we get the point,” she cut me off, giving me a cold stare, “if this is how you feel about me, then I suppose I’m not the one to issue a punishment. I can see you don’t look at me as a mother figure.” She slowly got up from the table, and made her way out of the room.