How To Love A Dead Boy

Chapter 28 | In His Arms

IN HIS ARMS

2 MONTHS LATER

My punishment was the first thing Johanna and dad had both agreed on for years. Faced with three months of being grounded and forced to get a job had its perks and its disadvantages. Every day, I had to go home with Johanna and she had to drop me off. Noah wasn't allowed to take me anywhere in his Ute, unless either mum or dad were there in the car with us. 

Everyday consisted of more or less the same routine; I woke up. Johanna took me to school. I stayed at school until she picked me up. I went to work for four hours. Johanna brought me home from work. I did my homework. I went to bed. 

The restrictions on my life were killing me. I felt like I was suffocating. There was nowhere to run to cool off after a fight. The only times I could leave the house for something other than school or work was on Saturday and Wednesday afternoons, where Cameron, Emma, Christopher and I met at each other's houses to work on our book. 

I wanted to scream. I wanted to shout. Tell my parents how much this punishment was killing me. But, no matter how much I complained to Ryden, he and I both knew;

I deserved every bit of it. 

Not coming home and then showing up on the front door in the middle of the next day was a bad move on my part. Not only had I not called, I had missed a day of school and directly disobeyed Johanna. I had been tempted to tell her the whole story, the truth about Ryden as well, but she was so furious, I couldn't say anything; nothing was an excuse for what I'd done. 

Apparently Johanna had spent that night calling around, asking where I was. She'd even called dad to come home early. He'd arrived home just before I had, and Johanna and he were standing in the kitchen, yelling at each other over who was responsible over my disappearance when I walked into the house. 

I haven't gotten such a telling off since primary school when I pushed a kid off the play equipment. She had broken her arm from her fall and dad had smacked me so hard, that by one smack, I had a red mark on my backside for two days. 

The 'smack' I received from dad this time was more of a mental one than a physical one. I could handle Johanna being made at me. But I couldn't handle the disappointed look on my dad's face each time he looked at me, after the accident. 

He'd come into my bedroom that afternoon while I sat with Ryden, sulking. 

Dad had sat down on the end of my bed and ran a hand down his face. He turned his head to me, looking tired and older than I thought he'd looked before he went to London. 

"What are we going to do with you?" he'd said. I'd looked down at my hands. 

"I'm really sorry about what happened dad... I didn't mean for any of this to happen... "

I looked up and dad was looking out at the gap in my curtains. 

"I thought you were more responsible than this Lucy. You were always so good. You were doing your homework, completed tests at really high standards. I still remember you running through the front door, one of your math tests in your hand, waving it around like a maniac. You ran right up to me telling me how you'd gotten 100%..." he started, then turns to me, "That's the Lucy I like to remember, not the one who is hardly home, shows up in the middle of the night and scares the living daylights out of me..." he finished. 

"I love you Lucy, and I love your brother, more than life itself... You need to understand that your mother and I only want the best for you... I wouldn't know what to do with myself if something happened to you, so please, understand that we are doing this for the best."