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Mom only had one condition to let me off the hook two days early — keep the house clean for the rest of the week.
Due to her clean freak nature, the house was never dirty, so it should've been an easy task.
If it weren't for Jackson, who had me questioning if my freedom was even worth the trouble.
After he overheard Mom's condition, coincidentally, his shoes were always dirty. He was constantly forgetting dirty dishes all over the house. The couch cushions were left disheveled every time he left the living room.
And the list goes on.
As much as I wanted to leave his mess for Mom to see, I knew it would fall on me.
Because when she was home, Jackson was the perfect freaking angel everyone else seemed to believe he was.
When he told me he was done 'trying to be nice', I wasn't sure what I expected.
I guess I was hoping that meant he would just ignore me, which he was — unless he was keeping up his facade in front of Mom, asking if I needed help cleaning up his mess.
It was confusing — no, infuriating — how easily he could go from purposely pissing me off, to acting like I don't exist in a matter of minutes.
Riling me up then removing himself from the situation before I could explode.
In Kallie's words, I was a big ball of stress and anger all week.
Because Jackson had engraved himself in my mind.
Even though he wasn't actively talking to me, he was impossible to ignore. There were reminders of him everywhere.
His messes. The sounds of his tv playing through the wall. The muffled coughs outside my window. His loud truck pulling into the driveway.
And the freaking curtain rod.
I should've been happy that it was straight now, but I wasn't. I would've much preferred it to stay crooked.
Because that would mean Mom and I would still be waiting on Dad or Elliott to fix it, and everything would be normal.
But now, something as normal as a straight curtain rod reminded me that everything wasn't normal — because he fixed it.
I couldn't ignore the fact that he was here, and I hated it.
While I was waiting for Kallie to pick me up, I sat hunched on the couch, resting my forearms on my knees.
My eyes zeroed in on the little hole above the left side of the curtain rod, and I frowned, bringing my hands up to rub my temples.
Kallie said she was going to be here an hour and a half ago, and with every minute that passed, my desire to go to this party was shrinking.
