Listen, Kid

This can be a lesson

Chapter 15

Tuesday, 5:30 pm

In the bunker

Dean's POV

I'm in the living room, waiting for Jayla to get home. She said she wanted to go to her friend's place, so we let her ride the bus from school to her friend's place. But she was supposed to be home, 20 minutes ago. I'm about to go out and look for her. She's a teenager. She probably just lost track of time. No big deal. But something else could've happened. Like something could've taken her. As I'm getting up from the couch, my phone buzzes and I look down to see a text from Jayla.

Jayla: My phone died. I'm sorry. I'll be home in like 10 minutes.

Dean: You were supposed to be home, 20 minutes ago. What the hell have you been doing?

Jayla: We went to the park and I wasn't paying attention to the time.

Dean: Kid, we talked about this. You have to let us know where you are.

Jayla: You're being dramatic. I was just at the park.🙄

Dean: But you know why we worry. So that means you know why we wanna know where you are. You were just at the park, but we didn't know that. You're gonna walk through the front door, 30 minutes later than you were supposed to, and we didn't know where you were.

Jayla: I'm not letting you lecture me over text message. I'll see you in 7 minutes.🥰

Dean: Jayla?

No answer.

Dean: Jayla Lynn.

Still no answer.

Dean: 🙄

Note to self: You can't argue with teenagers over the phone. They'll either hang up or stop texting and put their phone away. It's better to give lectures in person. That way, they can't just stop responding. They're at least hearing what you're saying.

Sam: Hey, you hear anything from Jay yet? He asks as he enters the living room.

Dean: Yeah. Her and her friend were at the park. She lost track of time. She'll be here in about 10 minutes.

Sam: We gotta talk to her about telling us-

Dean: Where she is. I know. I tried telling her that, and she stopped answering my texts.

Sam: It looks like we need to have another talk with her about respect.

Dean: Yeah. I've been putting it off because she just sits there, glaring at us the whole time. But now I think it needs to happen. She's been really disrespectful lately and now she's not telling us where she is?

Sam: It's because we've been going easier on her, this passed week. We felt bad about her suspension, and we started going easy on her again. Now she thinks it's ok to act out.

I don't think she ever stopped thinking that it was ok to act out. She started doing it less, but that's only because she doesn't wanna get fussed at. I wouldn't say that she ever thought it was wrong to act out. She's just done it less since we started disciplining her.