Off to Neverland

Off to Neverland (52)

Just the thought of them getting married made me want to throw my guts up. I didn’t know how long this marriage of theirs would last, but I didn’t want to think about it. Eli said that he didn’t want to be with her; he said that he wanted to be with me, and yet he hadn’t even tried to contact me since the day after Courtney’s party. I was glad that he hadn’t though, because I didn’t want to see him or deal with him ever again.

I just had to get over all the pain I was feeling, and everything would get better.

I was curled up into a ball on the couch, like I had been for the past few days. I had my room back, but it was just too weird to be in there, knowing that Eli had spent so much time in there while I was stuck on the couch.

“Ivy,” my father started when he saw me sprawled out on the couch, flipping through channels uncaringly. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have school today?”

“Yeah,” I shrugged, not even looking away from the TV as I spoke to him.

My father blinked. “Then why aren’t you there?”

“Because I don’t want to be.”

My father just stared at me, as if he was trying to think of what to say to me. I hadn’t been to school since I found out Courtney was pregnant, and that had almost been a week ago. I was surprised that my father hadn’t noticed I hadn’t been going to school.

“Have you been home all week?” my father now asked, his eyes going wide when he noticed my backpack was in the same exact place I had left it when I had come home the Friday before. “Ivy! It’s Thursday! You haven’t gone to school at all?”

“Nope,” I answered, still just flipping through the channels.

My father walked over and grabbed the remote from me, shutting the TV off and glaring down at me. I slowly looked up at him, feeling completely dead, and I waited for him to yell at me for not going to school.

“I don’t know what happened between you and Eli,” my father started, and I felt a twang of pain shoot through my heart at the mention of that name, “but it’s no excuse to skip school. Now I want you to get up and get ready so I can drive you to school. I don’t care if the day’s half over or not.”

“No,” I refused, rolling over so I was no longer looking at him. “I’m not going. You can’t make me.”

“Olivia Anne Morgan--”

“Don’t call me Olivia! That’s not my name!” I shouted at him now, that name almost making me crack. That was all Claudia would call me, and it was the same with Courtney’s mother. And when I thought of Courtney’s mother, I thought of Courtney. And when I thought of Courtney, I thought of Eli and their baby. It just made me hurt even more.

My father crouched down beside me now as I sat up on the couch, and I rubbed at my eyes to try to rid the tears that wanted to fall. It wasn’t fair. Why did this have to happen to me?

“Ivy,” my father sighed now, placing his hands on my knees as I just sat there in complete silence. “Obviously whatever happened between you and Eli was bad. I get that. But you still need to go to school. You need to think about your education.”

That was the last thing I could focus on. Eli and Courtney were going to be married in two days, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. There was nothing I could do to stop them from having their baby either…

“I don’t want to go back,” I sniffed, and it was the truth. That place reminded me of them too much. They were both there anyway, and there was nothing I could do to get away from them since they were in classes with me.