Escaping Expectations

Chapter 4

'Fuck! Why did I do that?!' I thought wildly to myself. I looked up from my plate as I was sitting at Sona's table, playing with my burger. 'Why did I kiss him?!' Sona was Max's mother. She was a tiny plump lady who always smiled. Seeing her angry was as rare as red diamonds. Although, even if she turned the same colour as the said precious rock, she would be unquestionably scary instead of magical.

"I cannot believe this! Kicking her OWN child out? This is unthinkable!" Her tone would immediately change when she spoke to me. "Of course you shouldn't blame yourself, sweet girl. You have done nothing worth of such treatment." She would pause to angrily bite down on her dripping burger. I could almost see smoke coming from her ears as she furiously chewed. I couldn't pay too much attention to her words since all I could think about was Max sitting on my left. We had not talked about what happened this morning and it was making me really uneasy. I regretted the kiss so much but how could I tell him that? He seemed perfectly fine and unfazed.

Was I reading too much into it? Did people kiss each other in rough times? Was that normal? 'I wonder if he kissed another girl before me?' What? What was wrong with me? Why did this thought run through my mind? Who cares if he did. Right? 'Ugh! What is wrong with me?' "Lily?" My head jolted up. "Huh? Yes?" She paused and looked at me concerned "I guess you aren't hungry huh." I looked at my plate and realized I had not touched my food. "Oh... I'm sorry.." Sona stood up and rushed to claim "No, it's natural to not have an appetite right now! Here, let my put this away. You can come back to it later if you feel like it, honey." She removed the dish and gave me a glass of water instead. "You should at least drink a bit, my dear."

*****

I was sitting outside in the sun, revising my english vocabulary, which I've been avoiding. "Fractious. Now that's a word that describes my mom well." I said out loud, even though I was alone. I sighed and rested my back on the brick wall for a moment. The sky was clear blue and the sun was still high. 'Such a beautiful day.' I didn't want to study right now. "Who uses 'Serendipity' anyways? Just say the person is lucky!? Dafuk." I was so angry. I wasn't angry at my teacher for giving us these words to study. I was mad at the whole world. I couldn't calm myself down. I was so upset with everything. 'Why am I like this?' I looked up and called upon a God I wasn't sure I believed in. "What the fuck is your plan, huh? They say you give us what we can handle. If that's true, you have overestimated my capacities. I can't deal with this!" 'Why couldn't I been born in another family?' I felt uncomfortable speaking to this supposedly almighty being this way, even though I didn't believe in it that much, if at all.

I felt highly uncomfortable being here and didn't know if it was ok for me to stay for a while. Why was life so complicated? What if things were different? What if we were these rich families where the mom didn't have to work and the dad was present because he ran a company from a distance? Would life be better? I doubted it. Even those who had that kind of privilege had issues. Life is just messed up. 'Why is there no way of winning at this? What a shitty game.' I had to remind myself that it wasn't a simulation or a game. I had to remind myself this was real life. 'Still a shitty game, though.' I concluded.

I looked around when I heard a crack of a branch and saw a flock of boys walking in my direction. 'That can't be good.' I presumed. I tried to look away to save myself from further eye contact when the door beside me swung opened. I looked up, it was Max. "Hey!" He called to the boys. "You guys are early!" He exclaimed as he smiled. He was met with waves and a few 'Wassup'. As the boys greeted one another, nobody payed attention to me. I felt extremely self conscious as the boys acted like chimpanzees. Looking back now, it's funny how teenagers acting like idiots would make me feel like this. They were not arrogant in their behaviour nor were they rude to me. I saw a few quick glances in my direction but I couldn't see any mockery or superiority in their eyes.