Our Time In High School- KotLC AU

Where the heart goes

Sophie POV:
My dads fork clattered loudly against his plate.
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.
I knew I had to tell my mom about his duplicitous behaviour with who I assumed was one of his colleagues. Who knows how many other women he had pining over him while my mother sat on the sides working her ass of for him.
I may not like my mother but I know she doesn't deserve this.
I gazed across the table at her. She sat, stoically picking at her salad with her fork. She hadn't spoken to me since she caught Keefe in our home. This made it even harder to tell her about my dad.
The silence pressed against me heavily. My brother was out with his friends. I wished probably for the first time ever that he was here- only to break the silence.
My mother cleared her throat delicately and turned her gaze to my father. "How was your day, Grady?"
I stared at him with the most challenging gaze I could muster, daring him to come clean.
Instead, he picked up his plate, pushed his chair back abruptly and stood, walking towards the sink. "Fine."
And then, he strode out of the room.
My eyes stayed on him the whole time. Pig.
"Mom."
My mother dropped her cutlery. I jumped. "I don't want to hear it Sophie. I don't want to speak to you. In fact, I don't want you under my roof. How dare you bring that sorry excuse for a boy into my house?! Have you met his mother? She's a drug addict for crying out loud!"
Alcoholic. She's an alcoholic. Keefe's voice echoed through my head. Drugs are too expensive.
"Mom, he's not like her-"
"Be quiet, Sophie. You don't understand the world yet, you don't know anything."
Her sharp words felt like they were cutting me. I didn't know anything. It's not like I worked as hard as I could every single day of my life to be the top in every class I had, just so I might get a single piece of praise from my mom.
I felt a hurricane of emotions brimming behind my eyes and in my throat. I had to get back at her.
"Yeah mom? Well I know that dads cheating on you!"
The confusion and hurt that contorted her face made me feel like I had won something. And then I regretted the words I had flung at her immediately.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
I ran out the room, leaving my mother standing alone in the kitchen with one hand pressed to where most people kept their hearts.
Maybe for her, it was just a black, empty chamber.