The Best of Friends [A Nathan Adrian Short Story][Completed]

Part Seven.

To say that my family didn't typically have dinner together, was a bit of an understatement. So that the face that we joined around the table to share a rare home cooked dinner, well I wouldn't have guessed it. But my mom was a very hot then cold kind of person, and a lot of the time it was cold.

At least to me it was. 

"So Delaney, keeping those grades up?" Dad asked. 

Obligatory question. It was literally the only thing that he knew he could ask me about. 

"Yeah. A's across the board." I nodded my head, picking around at chicken dish my mom had placed before me. 

"Great." He said, turning his head to face Dylan, my older, perfect brother. "Dyl, are you pumped up for the game this weekend?" 

His tone had changed completely, his eyes lit up as he spoke, and you could tell he was sitting on the edge of his seat waiting for an answer. 

"Yeah. We haven't seen them play the Patriots before." Dylan spoke, his deep voice always catching people off guard from his smaller figure. 

"That reminds me, Delaney could you go stay with Nathan this weekend. We're spending the weekend in downtown Seattle for the game, and I don't want you here by yourself." Mom said, not even bothering to look up from her plate at me.

"I'm 15 now, I can stay here alone." I said, trying to keep as much attitude out of my voice as possible.

"Let me rephrase that. I don't want you staying here by yourself. I don't trust you." She said, looking at me now. "And you're going to need to stay there over spring break as well. Dylan wanted to go on a cruise, and we agreed you wouldn't enjoy it, so it's just going to be us three."

I sat my fork down gently, only making the slightest noise as it hit my plate. 

"You know I am your daughter right? You didn't adopt me, you didn't foster me, you're my real parents. I know that you love treating me like garbage, but doing it with the cover of I won't like something or you don't trust me in my own home is ridiculous. I don't know what I did to you, but I am still your child whether you like it or not." I said, my voice raising with almost every word.

"You will not talk to me like this is my own home." My mother said, her voice louder than mine. 

"Why didn't you just give me up then, huh? If I'm that fucking terrible. You already have your perfect child, why do you need me? Give me to a family that actually loves and cares about me?" I yelled.

"Why would we want to put our burden on someone else." She said, with a cold voice and an icy stare. 

My father said nothing. Dylan continued to eat like nothing was going on. And my mother looked like she was about to attack me. 

I pushed back from the table, leaving my plate, and went to my room. I gathered everything I thought I would need, stuffed them in a bag, grabbed my backpack, and left out the front door. 

No one fought me on it, no one even looked my way. Conversation had turned lighter at the table, and now my mother was laughing about something. 

I made the small walk over to Nathan's, feeling all of my worth leave me with every step. 

I always knocked. Even though they had told me multiple times that I could just come in, I still knocked every single time. 

"Hey Delaney." Nathan's father said, opening the door, and gesturing for me to come up. "Nathan is in his room, we'll be eating any moment now, so feel free to come have dinner with us."