"Young love tends to be based on nothing but feelings. The couple has not yet faced and overcome a challenge or difficulty together. They are passionate about each other. They think about each other constantly and want to spend all their time"
Isaac...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
"We're going to be late!" I shouted from the bottom of the stairs, my voice echoing through the house.
Of course, she was late. She was always late. Probably because she was dreading this stupid conference more than I was — and as usual, made sure I knew it.
"I'm going, calm down," my mom called back, her heels clicking against the steps as she came into view.
No scrubs tonight. Something I wasn't used to seeing.
I raised a brow at her outfit, low-cut blouse, tight skirt. "You know showing your chest won't get me a higher grade, right?"
She shot me a glare sharp enough to cut glass as she brushed past.
"Angelina, you're already wasting my time making me show up to this, don't make it more miserable," she said flatly, grabbing the keys from the entrance table like she couldn't get out of the house fast enough.
"Why can't you just wait here?"
I scoffed. "And miss the chance to watch your face twitch in pure misery? Never."
We walked out the door together, silent tension buzzing in the air between us. The kind of tension that had been there for years, unspoken and sharp-edged.
"I don't get why you're doing this," she muttered once we were outside. "I get it — you wanna show out, be the smartest, be better than everybody else. But your grades? You care too much, Angie."
I stopped halfway to the car.
Why did I care so much?
For a second, the question hit harder than it should've. I didn't have a good answer. Maybe because school was the only thing I could control. The only place where if I worked hard enough, no one could take it from me.
But I wasn't about to say that.
So I just shrugged and kept walking.
The car ride was thick with silence.
Not the comfortable kind — the kind that makes your chest feel tight, like every breath is one word away from an explosion.
I didn't want to talk to her.
Not about school.
Not about me.
Not about anything.
She'd done a thousand cruel things to punish me over the years, but the divorce — that was the one I couldn't let go.
She kept saying one day I'd understand. One day it would make sense.
