Good Girl

Chapter 2

Valeria Bartoletti was my mom.    

Yeah, I know it sounds like a mafia name.

She blames herself for my record because she thinks she's being too soft on me, which is mostly true. But her dad was Sicilian (see? Mafia); nothing short of a hardass, so she always called him to do the disciplining. Emphasis on called. Past tense. He died a few months ago. I wasn't really that upset about it, honestly, and my mom knew that, but she still wanted me to speak at his funeral. But what was I gonna say?  

"I'm gonna miss the brutal beatdowns he unleashed on my ass when I had a drink every now and then?" Hell no. 

Anyways, back to the story. 

About five or ten minutes later, my mom burst through the door, a look of pure anger on her face. 

But she didn't say much. 

She didn't say anything except, "let's go," as she pulled me out of the police station lobby by my hair.

"Ow, what the fuck?!" I shouted as my hair was being yanked out of its sockets.

She pulled my face up to look at her, reared her arm back, and backhanded me, right across my jaw. 

I just sat there, trying to keep the gross mixture of drool and blood from dripping out of my mouth. I reached up to touch my cheek, which felt like it was on fire, by the way, and felt a few dents.

Fuckin’ diamond wedding ring, I thought. The bitch never takes it off.

She then continued to pull, practically drag me, by my hair all the way to the car, and I swear to God it was parked half a goddamn mile away.

When we got there she stomped over to the driver’s seat and plopped down.

I got into the passenger seat and turned on the radio.

“Oh, fuck, no,” she snapped as she turned it off again. “Your ass is grounded.”

“Just my ass?” I smirked.

She clenched her teeth and we were silent for about a mile.        

When we turned onto the freeway, she spoke again.

"You know, you start high school in one day,” she said. “If I get a call in the first couple weeks of school that you’ve been suspended,”

“You’ll flip your shit?”

“I’ll fuckin’ flip you.”

There was a long pause.

“What does that even mean?”

Yeah, she didn’t talk to me after that.