Flipped 2

Bryce Chapter 63

Juli and I weren't speaking.
It's not like we never fought before.We've had our fair share of fights.
But nothing like this.

After enquiring several of my teammates and a couple of freshers, I pieced together that after I went to the party,I played lots of beer pong, got drunk(too much for my own good) and danced on top of tables with different people. It was not a proud moment for me when I say that most of them were girls.
Juli must have seen me dancing with them and thought otherwise.
But nothing happened.
I swear to God.
Nothing happened.
I was hammered but not enough for my memory to have been wiped away.
Nothing happened.

I tried to talk to Juli on multiple occasions, catch her eye in the hallway, try to get her and I alone somehow, somewhere but it was as if time was repeating itself.
She was the first one out of class, she dropped her head down low everytime we encountered in the hallway and rarely stayed at home.
Except that time it was because I threw away her eggs. I would happily be given the silent treatment for that again over a stupid party. Going to that was a mistake. A mistake that might had just costed me my girlfriend. If she was still mine for that matter.
All these thoughts were swirling in my mind when I walked through the front door.
I was about to make my first step to the stairs when my mother called for me. I followed the voice to the kitchen where both my mother and Lynetta were seated at the dining table, a sullen look on their faces.
As I entered the kitchen,a cold feeling creeped down the back of my neck as if it were trying to tell me something. I guess it was.
" Why the long faces?"
I grabbed a glass and poured myself some orange juice before settling on a chair.
It was then when I noticed a paper, a document by the looks of it lying on the table, crumpled as if it has been held too many times.
I picked up the document and perused it.
My smile was replaced with a grim one as soon as I reached the end of the page.
" What is the meaning of this?" I waved the document in the air, barely digesting its contents.

I shot a look at my mom who was silently crying and then to my sister.
" What..the..fuck...is...this?" I asked slowly again, letting my brewing anger fuse into words.

" Bryce, I....."
My mother opened her mouth and then closed it.

"I..Can he do this?"
I was tripping over my thoughts, trying to wrap my head around it.

Lynetta nodded.
" The house is under his name so yeah...he has every right to do so. Bryce.."

" When did you get this?" I interrupted.
I thumbed through the sheets. When I couldn't find anything, I went over to the garbage bin outside and ruffled through its contents.
When I found for what I was looking for, I returned to the kitchen and slammed the mail on the table.
" This mail came a couple of weeks ago?Why didn't you say anything?" I asked calmly, my voice carefully harboring the brinks of an explosion.

" You were practising for the final game. So, mom didn't want to distract you. And she called me."
This explained why my sister dropped unannounced that day.

" YOU KNEW!!" I screeched.
" Both of you knew and you didn't tell me. Does Chet know?"

Neither of them said anything. And then Lynetta nodded.

Without saying another word,I stormed out the back door that led to the backyard and made my way to Juli's house. Mrs. Baker said that she wasn't home.
I punched in her number but it went to voicemail.
" Ughhhhh," I groaned when my eyes caught another number.

---×---
" My dad is evicting us from the house," I said, the words 'dad' and 'evicting' stinging my tongue like poison.
I stared at the playground, trying to push back all the memories with him here.

" Shit. Can he do that?" Charles asked.
I needed to get away from the house. I also needed someone to talk to. Charles was my next best option.

" The house is under his name so yeah apparently he can," I laughed humourlessly.

Charles turned to me with a serious look.
" What are you going to do?"

I raised my arms in the air and dropped them on my lap.
" I don't know."
I pinched the bridge of my nose, exhaling furiously.
" I don't fucking know."

" I just don't understand why they didn't tell me! My mom never tells me anything! I mean how am I supposed to do take care of my family if I don't even fucking know what's going on?"

" Will you ease with all the cussing? You're about to give me a heart attack! Jesus, man! Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

I grinned. Leave it to Charles to make someone laugh to diffuse the tension.

" I'm sorry. I'm just so.....angry. Why doesn't she tell me anything? Does she think I can't handle it? Because I can."

" Of course you can. Nobody's denying that. But....."

" I knew there was a but," I grumbled.
I threw a pebble which stayed airborne for a few seconds before tumbling onto to the grass defeated by gravity.

" The world is a scary place. And we as teenagers don't experience that until we go to college, get a job, just you know get out of the house. Now, until we leave, our parents take it as their responsibility to protect us from it as long as they can."

" So?"

" You can be such an idiot sometimes. This isn't about whether or not you can handle it. All your mother wants to do is protect you. That's called love,dude."

" My parents didn't tell me when my mom found out that she had cancer. She fell unconsciousness one day in our living room and they told me."

I closed my eyes and rested my head against my palms.
" I should go and apologize, shouldn't I?"

" No. I want to see you throw stones."

" Sarcasm?" I asked, surprised.

" Get out of here."
He shoved me off the ledge which threw me off balance at the suddenness.

" Thank you. I mean it. Thank you."

" Always, amigo."

" No."

" Always, lassie."

" You just referred to me as a little girl."

" Really?"

" Yeah."

" Always, big guy?"

" Absolutely not."

" You are such a buzzkill."

" Always, brother."
I nodded my head and smiled at him before leaving.

" Later."

Ok, so I don't cuss. At all. There was a time when I said when I didn't know it was a bad word and one time when I got angry at my sister. But both of those times, I didn't realize I was saying it.
Now, I cuss in my head. Especially when I am super mad. I have never ever used it in my stories before. So, it was a big moment for me when I wrote this chapter.
And there is this power to the word, you know. It just brings the meaning to the table. It's like that scene in 13 Reasons Why where Tony and Clay yell the word on top of a cliff or something.
Absolutely brilliant.
I am going to stop talking now.