“So you could enlist me into babysitting whenever you feel like?” I was getting mad, and I realised I was acting childishly, but their trust in my abilities to actually take care of myself were clearly nonexistent. Not once did Mum ask me to clarify where exactly I would be moving and how I’d found the place. Oh, no, she had assumed I was naive and had managed to get myself into trouble.
“Of course not, Haylee, so that you would be safe,” Mum replied. If she’d left it at that I’d have considered spoon-feeding her the information I’d withheld, but she had to go and ruin it. “You and I both know how reckless you can be. Now let me see that contract.”
I squinted at her as the ball of fury in my stomach grew and sizzled with vengeance. “There is no written contract,” I offered stubbornly.
“What? Haylee you did not lease a flat on verbal confirmation only! You know better than that. Give me their contact information and I will sort this out for you right now. This will not be happening.”
“I did,” I said, gritting my teeth. “And no, I will not give you the contact. I am moving this weekend whether you like it or not. What you can help me with is borrowing Dad’s van for the job, but that is the only thing I need from you.”
I turned around, forgetting breakfast, and marched right back into my bedroom to grab my phone and my keys. I couldn’t stay a minute longer or I would explode right into my mother’s disapproving face.
“Haylee, come back here right this second!” she called after me, but I ignored her.
Once safely behind my closed door, I took deep breaths to calm my raging thoughts and thumping heart. I’d just stuffed a pair of joggers and a shirt into a backpack when the door slammed open behind me and my mum’s scowling face disrupted my escape.
“Don’t walk away when I’m still talking to you,” she said while Dad tried to restrain her with a, “let her go, she needs to learn from her own mistakes,” that didn’t help soothe either of us.
I took a deep breath and tried to swallow down the bile rising in my throat. “If I don’t leave now, we’ll both regret it.” Very adult of me to say—very reasonable—and with that I hauled the bag over my shoulder and stormed out.
I couldn’t believe I had been on the fence about moving in with Glen when she first suggested it. Anything would be better than staying with my parents another day longer than I had to. Even taking over Mama Jones’ old bedroom and living with her ghost. Not that I believed in ghosts. And dating would become so much easier, too, if I didn’t have to tell men I was still living with my parents. Nobody had asked, of course; I’d made sure not to give anyone reason to get close. That could change once I moved. I could not only put my mother’s judgement behind me, but also the pastrecklessnessshe so often liked to bring up.
Rushing to cross the street as a double decker turned a corner and made its way toward the bus stop, I tried to get that thought process out of my head, but it was stuck in there with a Super Glue.
I cringed imagining how that would play out with Mr Umbrella:Oh, you know, today my nipples are safe since I decided to wear a padded bra, but I’m still living with my parents, so there’s always that...
Yeah, not happening. I wouldn’t bring up my nipples in the first place, that was too close to thinking about the past I was to leave behind. Besides, Mr Umbrella would be one of those men not really inquiring about my situation, so this would never come up.
Either way, moving in with Glen would be for the best.
Freedom
THE STUDENTS IN MYdance?class were in for a workout since my morning hadn’t quite turned out the way I expected it to, and I needed an outlet. I didn’t even bother to take them through the new choreography I’d planned to teach and had them all on their backs doing sit-ups. My own muscles screamed at me to stop since I’d been at this tempo for a third class in a row, but I might have been punishing myself, too.
With the chocolate horror of yesterday’s supper fresh in my mind, I counted down from twenty, then went lax on the mat. Several sighs sounded across the studio.
“Stretch,” I said, reaching my arms over my head as far as they could go, feeling my abs strain in the process. A minute later I had us on our stomach lifting the upper body off the floor until my back burned.
