Misalignment | ✔

surprise

Not long after
my mother falls asleep,
my phone vibrates
in my pocket.
Carefully, I pull it out,
trying not to
jostle my mother
too much
as I do so.

Unsurprisingly,
the message is
from Matty.

5:34 p.m. [Matty]
Hey, how's it going? :)

5:37 p.m.
Alright, I guess. My mother
is asleep on the couch.
She still seemed
pretty upset today.

5:39 p.m. [Matty]
Oh, I'm sorry :(
Have you talked to her
about the thing with
your grandma yet?

5:44 p.m.
No. I don't want
to make things worse when she's
already so upset over
what happened.
I don't want to
tell her she shouldn't have said
what she did
when she's like this.

5:45 p.m. [Matty]
True. How long
do you think you'll
have to wait, though?
And how long does
your grandma have left?

5:47 p.m.
I don't know.
I haven't checked on anything
relating to my grandmother,
and my mother won't tell me
if she knows anything.
Not that I've asked, but
she hasn't said anything about
what happened at the hospital
since we came home that night.

5:50 p.m. [Matty]
Not to pressure you, but
you should do it soon,
or else you both will
regret so many things
you didn't fix in time
after she's gone.

I pause for a moment,
thinking
and worrying away
at my lip -
a nervous habit
from my childhood
that I've never quite
rid myself of.
I'm not quite sure
if I agree
with Matty,
even if I know
deep inside
that she's probably right.

5:51 p.m.
Yeah. I guess you're right.
But my mother hasn't been doing
very well for the past few days,
so I'm taking it easy on her.
I'll talk to her about it
when she calms down
and gets most of it
out of her system.

5:54 p.m. [Matty]
Good. It'll be just fine,
you'll work it out,
I know you will, Cam.
But, hey, while your mom
is still asleep,
I want to show you something
if that's alright.
Would she get mad
or even more upset
if you left the house while
she's sleeping?

5:56 p.m.
I don't know. It's never
come up as an issue before.
Then again, nothing like this
has ever happened before
with my grandmother.

I've never had
a friend who has wanted
to sneak me out
of my house, either -
but I don't mention that
to her.

5:58 p.m. [Matty]
True. But I think you need
a little bit of time
to calm down about all this.
You've seemed kind of stressed out.
I have the perfect place.
You in?

5:59 p.m.
If you say so...
There's no point in
arguing with you,
is there?
Where are we going?

6:00 p.m. [Matty]
Aw, don't be like that... :(
It's a surprise. Meet me
in front of the school in
ten minutes.

6:00 p.m.
Alright. See you then.

Still rather bemused,
I tuck my phone away
with a quiet sigh
and attempt to
dislodge my mother
from my shoulder
so I can get up
from the couch
and leave.

×

Alright, so we have some good news and some not-so-good news. Good news is that I wrote more of Misalignment today (which is REALLY good news, since I haven't had the inspiration to lately). Bad news is that pissy Cam makes an appearance in it. Is that really bad news? I guess it's just what happens when I'm in a bad mood, lol. Anyway, that'll be here in another few chapters.

If you guys liked this chapter, feel free to vote and leave me some feedback below, I'll love you forever if you do. Maybe I'll even bake you some cookies...

Now I'm hungry. Crap.