Vivamus, Moriendum est (Rorschach x oc)

17. The Wayward

Mary's P.O.V.  1958

"Absolutely not. No." I attested. My steps resounded up the stairs as I stomped on them, Irene following close behind me.

"Please, consider this! It will be good for you." She pleaded struggling to keep pace with me.

I threw open the door to my room and began tossing items into a suitcase I had pulled from the hall closet downstairs.

"You're going back on your word." I reminded her.

Irene came beside me and began removing items from my suitcase as I put them in.

"I am not."

"You assured me that I would only have to go if my original plans didn't work out. You said that if I had a plan, you wouldn't make me." I picked up my hairbrush and examined it, debating whether it was worth taking. Irene snatched it from my hands and placed it back on my nightstand. In retaliation I decided it was worth taking after all.

"We agreed that if you didn't have a plan, you'd try at least one semester of college."

"I have a plan. Something you seem to forget."

"College will give you opportunities! It will open doors for you! Doors that'd never be possible otherwise!"

"Now you're telling me to try one semester of college regardless? You're going back on your word!"

"Your plan is-I just want you to have a secure future."

"No, you don't believe in me. You're just shipping me off again. First behavioral school and now a finishing school. You don't believe me capable of being out on my own unsupervised."

"I'm not trying to ship you off. Education is important and I want you to have the best of it."

"If you never wanted to ship me off then why have you never cleared me from the Charlton Home? Why did I have to suffer through that last year there? Alone nonetheless! Did you know Walter was cleared?"

Irene tensed. "Yes."

I glared at her, "did you clear him?"

"No. I didn't clear him. The school did that on their own."

"Then why did I have to stay there? Do you think there's something wrong with me?"

Irene cast her gaze to the floor, her mouth pressed in a straight line.

I threw a sweater down in the suitcase. "You do, don't you?"

Irene's head snapped up. "Of course, I don't!"

"Then why did I have to stay?"

I awaited an answer and received none. I began furiously chucking more items in my suitcase.

"I never tried to send you away. Not ever."

"Then explain to me why I've hardly ever spent any time here and now that I have opportunity to you seem pressed to have me out within the month?"

"I'm just trying to help you to find direction." Irene placed her hand on my arm. I pulled away and jumped away from her.

"I have direction! I know what I want to do! But you don't believe me capable of doing so and you think that I have absolutely nothing going for me."

"That's not true. College is meant to help you explore your skills and interests."

"Or build those skills."

She sighed, "yes. It can do that as well. But you have those already. You're just a little misguided. You just need help calling upon those skills and finding them."