It's a Love-Hate relationship

CHAPTER 47: A prisoner with junk food and Netflix allowance

My pride and ego – yes, I admit I have a huge one – are not ones to be ever let down. I reckon everyone who knows me closely, very well know this fact. So obviously, I had to stop Maddie from treating me like a charity case and get out of her house.

I think her mom probably had enough with how much I bent her cutlery into the plate, imagining various faces who I desperately wanted to stab for real.

Going back to my house wasn't an option. After my suspension, my so-called mother tried endeavored numerous times to get the truth out of me – why would her daughter be suspended?

I have not uttered one single word to her ever since she stepped foot into this house. I just cannot bring myself to it. Seeing her face in my house, living how a normal mother would with her children, is more than overwhelming. No. I did not consider myself as her child. She lost that opportunity and position in my life as soon as she walked out that door, leaving infant me all alone with my father. Not even one single attempt at communication even. Nothing at all. I could have even not known her face were it not for Jason's photos of her paired with his unshakeable hope for her to return one day.

I can still say he is her favorite. Or rather vice versa. Jason seemed disturbed, alright, that day she arrived at our doorstep. But he still conversed with her – though less – it was still a civil conversation.

I brushed off the task to talk to her, assuring myself that it is better to stay away from her, lest all my anger strikes like a lightning bolt and I say or do something people often frown upon. I mean, people don't just go hitting their parents, right?

She is not your parent, Summer.

Yes, she is not.

So, after a weeklong of torture of staying holed up in my room, not even getting the chance to sneak some wine out the kitchen without the risk of running into that woman, I finally found some peace when I heard the front door open and close.

I strut out my bedroom, stretching like a feline as if I just received freedom after being locked up like a prisoner.

A prisoner with junk food and Netflix allowance. At least.

Judging from the lame reality show the TV is playing and no rapt audience near it, I deduce she finally went out of the house. I do a little Chandler-style happy dance and waltz clumsily into the kitchen, eager to pop open a wine bottle I purchased weeks ago.

"I see my dancing genes weren't passed on to you."

I flinch slightly, turning around to glare at Jason for almost making me drop my precious bottle of wine.

"And I see honesty wasn't passed on to you." I stare at him for a second before moving past him and plopping on the couch. One more person to my 'No talking to them because they are shitty people and they lie to me. A lot' list. It's not like I am dead certain that Jason does drugs. The fact that he didn't even bother explaining to me about that dreadful day's drama, vexed me to my core and I started giving him the cold shoulder.

I flip through the channels, finally settling on a re-run episode of Friends. As much as I tried concentrating on how Joey stared at Rachel with love-struck eyes, my attention span broke as soon as the space next to me dipped, and Jason stared at me intently.

"Why are you not talking to me?"

"Oh, was I supposed to? I'm sorry I forgot the role of a sister whose brother was apparently caught in a loop with drugs. Oh, wait. Or was it the brother's fault who did not just come up to me to explain everything?" I furrow my eyebrows, tapping my chin exaggeratedly. Jason huffs and snatches the remote from my hand, switching off the TV and tossing the remote somewhere behind the couch.