The cops made everyone who’s underage call their parents. Luckily for Kai, Kevin wasn’t there, so Kevin came as if he didn’t just come from a party himself and took Kai home. I’m not sure what happened to Paige or if she got caught. Between myself and everyone else running, I couldn’t see her.
“Is it that boy? You never were like this before you met him.”
“Don’t blame him.”
“Then who do I blame?” She sniffles, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Me. Blame me. This is all me. It was my decision to sneak out.”
“Why do you feel the need to sneak out?” She looks over at me. Wetness soaks her cheeks. “And drink? I never in a million years thought you would drink at this age,” she says sternly. “And now this.” She grabs a red piece of paper in her hand.
The cops breathalyzed everyone underage and wrote them a ticket for underage drinking and curfew. It’s my first ticket. The first time the cops caught us, he didn’t write us one. I never realized you could get a ticket for being out past a certain time. How controlling is that? Especially by a city.
She slams the tickets down on the center console, making me jump in my seat.
“I’m not doing this bullshit with you, Blakely. I already went through enough with your dad. It was hard enough raising you two alone. I don’t deserve this from you.”
My head hangs low. I thought the first time I snuck out with Paige was a big disappointment. The emotions I see my mom going through right now are way more than the first time.
“If you keep continuing down this path, you’re going into foster care. I am not doing this.”
My entire world spins with those words. Would she do thatto me? I think of waking up to another family. Waking up in a stranger’s house with no familiar faces. In a stranger’s bed. Will they have other kids? Would they treat me like Cinderella, making me their maid?
As I exit the car, an icy breeze hits me. My mom comes around to where I’m standing with an open hand. “Give me your phone.”
I reach into the top of my shirt where my phone is sitting against my bra strap and hand it to her.
I hear a shattering sound as I watch her throw it to the ground and stomp on it.
Looking at me with a frown, she says, “Brynlee is next door. I woke the neighbors up to ask them to watch her so I could go pick you up. I let them and Brynlee know you were sick at a friend’s house. The last thing I need is for Brynlee to be scared again,” she says and storms off to the neighbors.
Before she knocks on the neighbor’s door, she stands there for a minute. Her chest rises and falls while she wipes the tears from her eyes.
I reach down, pick up my phone, and throw it in the trash. I wait for them on the patio, lost for words and thoughts.
“Hi, B. Are you okay?” Bryn says in a groggy voice.
Tears fall faster now, knowing what my choices are making everyone else go through.
I nod and wipe my nose as I sniffle. My mom walks right past me with no eye contact and walks up the stairs with Brynlee’s small little hand in hers.
You’re going to foster careruns through my mind as I walk into the house I’ve always known. A house I grew up in since I was a little girl. The same house Brynlee is growing up in. The house that my mom worked so hard to keep for us to have ahome.
November 2009
“You know the drill,” my mom says without looking my way.
My brows furrow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you come straight home, and I will call you to make sure you are home.”
“Oh, yeah,” I whisper.
“And while you’re at it, clean the house.”
Before closing the car door, I ask, “What do you want me to clean?”
“I don’t know, Blakely. You’re old enough to figure out what needs to be cleaned.” My chest tightens as I hear the disappointment in her voice. She hasn’t looked at me since Saturday night.
