Bad Habits 4

Mother By Blood, Not Emotion

"You need to leave, Ethans home." My mom explained to Caroline.
I slowly took my steps down the stairs and saw them two facing each other.

It was like the town was gonna go boom cause mom and my grandma hadn't seen each other since....well since my Dad was in New York.

"I want to talk about Malias admission in regards to her being suspended."
She was probably going to threaten her way back.

I crossed my arms and rolled my eyes. She knew exactly what she was doing to us.

"I can figure things out for my own daughter, thank you. Just worry about your own."
GO MAMA!

I got my attitude from my mom and dad.

Caroline nodded "I understand but these things are crucial to be discussed. She hadn't been the best academically these past few weeks. I can get Malia back into the college if she's willing to listen to what we have to offer?"
Mom nodded "I'm listening."

"She needs to no longer participate in that gang, it's really ruining the family name and tricking these teenagers into thinking all sorts that that's the reason Malia attended the college in the first place. It can really instigate bad things."

I knew mom wasn't going to stop me. She wouldn't.

"Malia return your jacket to me. You're no longer allowed to be in that disgusting gang."
"What?!"

"Malia!" She shouted back.

Like any normal teenager would do, I stormed off and ran into my room.
Damn the look on Caroline's face made me wanna throw up. Everything about her just made me angry, livid, annoyed and-

"Malia?" I heard my mom stand by my door.
I should've locked it.

I shook my head and ignored her.
"Malia you're acting as if being in that dang is some sort of addition, and the gang isn't a gang....it's coke." She mocked me.

"Mama, you don't understand! That gang was the only thing helping me stay sane in that whole college, everyone looked at me as "Ethans kid" but now I was actually taken seriously around there-"
"And you think acting like your father and doing all the things he did is going to make you your own person?! How crazy does that sound?"

"For once I just wanna feel in control of something in my psycho life, nothing ever goes my way and when it does, you just throw a bombshell on me!"
I never felt so hurt.
Even though we were arguing over something so pointless.

I sat down on my bed and put my head in my hands.

Mom instantly felt amounts of guilt for what she said and she sat down next to me and put her hand on my shoulder.

"Is this about Aidan?"
I looked up at her. "How do you know?"

"Well let's just say when my own Dad was abusing me I did go through some bad coping mechanisms myself, and so did your father. We've come a long way since all of this. Since you and Zackary were born. I lost my mom at a young age, my dad never cared about me, he used to show up every night drunk. I watched my own long lost brother die before my eyes after we found each other. Then I found out my mom who I was grieving for the whole time wasn't my real mom. I was taken away from the only home I knew and put into a girls home, I was pregnant at 17 and was a single mom for 4 years. The only thing that ever made sense in my life was meeting your father, even though he made my life a hell of a rollercoaster, he just made sense because we both loved each other." She chuckled a little at the end.

She was right. I spent so much time trying to do all of these things, like start the Dawson foundation for the charity and sharing Aidans story I forgot to share my own.

I hugged my mom and quickly apologised.
"I know mom and I'm so sorry for everything. I know I've been a burden upon you guys, you went through worse and here I am. Look at me, Zack got stabbed and there was me getting off my head."
She wiped my tears and kissed my forehead.

There was a slight knock at the door and my eyes widened.
I looked at mama confused and mom went to the door and after she opened it, she saw my dad. Ethan was standing with his arms crossed with the most pissed off face.
Oh no.

"Why is she here?" He referred to Caroline.
"She just got our daughter back into the college so be nice."

She grabbed my dads hand and they walked back downstairs.
I couldn't help but follow them and I watched from the stairs as I saw them talking.

"Caroline? Thank you for helping Malia get back into the college and we talked things through and she would love to accept the conditions."
Caroline grinned and she nodded. "Perfect!"

Ethan scoffed and he rolled his eyes.
Caroline saw that she definitely wasn't wanted in my dads eyes and she soon got the hint.

"Well I should be making a move and I shall expect to see Malia soon."
She looked one last time at Ethan "I'm glad to know you're doing well son. You're doing good raising a great family.

"Ethan." He corrected her.
She had a slight sad look on her face and he pursed her lips and walked towards the door.

Mom elbowed dad and signalled him to do something.
"Hey? Mom?" He called her.
She soon turned around and smiled a little. "Yes?"

"We're just about to have lunch and I would like it if you joined us? You can tell me all about the professor job and how Ellie's getting on?"
"I would love that."

~
2 DAYS LATER—

"Malia, I'm so glad you're back again!" Ethel said again for the 100th time.

It's definitely good to be back.
I emptied out the last of the boxes and finally finished unpacking all my things in the room.

KT agreed "Yeah, it's a real party." She said with sarcasm.

As Ethel was talking I saw someone standing by the door.
It was Liam. He kept whispering to get my attention and I subtly left the room and met him down the hall.

"Hey."
"Malia, I'm glad you're okay. I was so worried ever since that day."

"Was it you who bought me home?"
He nodded guiltily.

I immediately kissed him and cupped his cheeks.
We both pulled away and Liam smiled.
"You saved me. Thank you."

He didn't overreact about it. We both kinda acted like it was normal.

"There's been so much happening since you left, even though it was only for a week."
"Like what?"

"For starters, Hayden and Shelby broke up. It was bad. There was arguments and it just got bad."

I didn't care about them. For once.
Ever since the thing with Shelby happened and where she tricked Liam, I chose to ignore the both of them. Hayden was only nice to me when it was convenient for him.

"Liam, I've kinda given up in revolving my life around them. It's not ideal for the original reason on why I came here. I started becoming behind on assignments and I made a promise as well to leave the Bitter Sweet Gang."

Liam agreed. He was quick to nod when he heard the words "leave" and "gang".
Sometimes I think he doesn't even know why he's in it himself.

"Can we just start over?" He asked me but with a little hesitation.
"Why not?" I chuckled.

A lot was going through my head. Feeling as if my uncle was no longer with me to guide me through these tough times, but I knew he was doing it to teach me a lesson. I just wanted to know which one.

I looked back at Liam.
"Let's forget about all of that for now. I was wondering if you could help me with something?" I said as I took Uncle Zacks bucket list out from the back of my pocket.
"What's this?"

"It's a bucket list. I've already fucked up everything else in my life so it can't get any worse from here." I laughed and Liam shook his head and rolled his eyes.
"Okay, where do we start?"

Those are the words I wanted to hear him say. It was music to my ears. For once I was doing something that mattered a lot to me, not something that I thought would boost my reputation a little.

For me. For Zack.