Summer Delinquent

Chapter 21

Unedited but enjoy!

|| Chapter 21 ||

The drive home is slow and tedious. Not a word is spoken between Harry and I. The line of cars following us slowly tapers off the closer to home we get until it's just Charlotte's car, Sebastian's car and Harry's. Drew's car follows us all the way to our driveway before he does a U-turn and heads back down the street towards his own neighborhood.

A headache is starting to form in the back of my head. Harry parks his car next to my mom's and Charlotte parks next to his. I climb out of the car, holding onto the door with shaky hands, praying that my parents are asleep.

Charlotte's friends are still with us as well as Cole and they're quick to walk straight into the house, not willing to deal with anymore drama for the night.

Olivia is slower to go inside, since she's practically a member of this family but a few facial expression exchanges between her and Charlotte leads her to kiss the corner of Sebastian's mouth quickly before walking into the house.

My siblings don't speak to me as we all walk up the front steps. Thankfully I'm not longer dripping wet and my clothes are just damp now, sticking to my skin.

They brush past me into the house and up the stairs, Sophie lingers for a second, squeezing my shoulder gently before following them.

The lock clicks shut quietly behind me and I lock the door, bracing myself, knowing the drill after all the times my siblings have been caught coming home overly drunk or past curfew. This however, is so much worse.

My mother is not sitting in her favorite arm chair that she usually sits in ready to bust us as we walk in the house. No, she's standing with folded arms five feet away from my face. I gulp in a breath.

She looks disheveled, I mean why wouldn't she? Her youngest broke her arm today and then her almost seventeen year old disappeared without a word or a phone for nearly five hours. She hasn't changed out of her scrubs from the hospital and her usually professionally done bun is barely being held up by the hair-tie.

I run my tongue along my teeth, not wanting to be the first one to speak.

"You got in a car with strangers." Her voice is devoid of any emotion. "Without your phone."

Another gulp of breath on my side.

"I get that you were pissed at us, really I do. Maddie explained everything to your father and I before we found out that you were missing," her voice is tight.

"Mom-."

"I'm not finished. When I am done you can tell me everything but please let me get this out before I break down, cool?" I put my hands behind my back, nervous. "Your siblings spent the last five hours looking for you. Do you know how worried we were? Your father nearly had a melt down and I couldn't do my surgery because I was deemed unfit."

I grit my teeth. She walks up to me and places her hands on each cheek. "I am sorry for not listening to you when we should've, that's my fault and I was wrong. But, you don't disappear for hours without any form of communication because you're upset, that isn't safe Tess and I need you to be safe because you are my baby."

My arms cross over my chest, "Maddie's your baby, how is she, by the way?"

"She's fine, she's been a little restless but that's to be expected." Her hands squish my cheeks a little, giving me fish lips, "I gave birth to you therefore you are my baby. Hell, you could be fifty years old and I will still call you my baby."

"I'm sorry mom," I say to her once she's let go of my face. "I didn't think of anyone else's feelings but my own. I just got so angry."

She holds onto my arm and pulls me with her towards the kitchen. "Honey," she gestures for me to sit at the island while she digs around in the pantry. "We fucked up. I was prepping for surgery when I got a message from one of the front desk nurses that one of my daughters was just rushed into the hospital. Thankfully Dr Branson was the second surgeon on hand for my patient and I was put in distress and unable to perform the surgery so he took over." She walks out of the pantry with a bag of chocolate chips, "None of us were thinking, all we knew was that Maddie was hurt and it was bad."