My life

Chapter 12

The next day, Chloe decided to avoid her friends. She was too embarrassed by the events that took place the night before, how she and Laila had fallen asleep and woken up to the sound of her mum and Calvin arguing over Calvin's addiction, how her mother had rudely sent Laila out of the house when she saw her. Chloe had completely ignored her mother's rants after Laila left, locking herself in her room to cry.

She cringed at the thought of facing Laila after that. Deciding she couldn't bare the humiliation, she made her way to the library during lunch break.

She didn't think her friends would miss her or come to find her so seeing Elliot in the library brought a huge grin to her face, her heart thudded as she saw him saunter to her with his back pack slung over one shoulder.

"Hey nerd"

"Since when did I become a nerd?"

"Since you hung out alone at the library"

He sat opposite her, folding his arms and leaning back.

"I didn't feel like socializing"

"Why ? What's wrong?" He questioned in concern.

"Nothing"

He could tell she was lying, it was obvious she was, but he decided to let it go since that's how she wanted it.

"You weren't in school yesterday" he changed the topic. Chloe felt grateful to him for this. She explained how she had found Laila passed out in the girls bathroom.

She was glad Elliot came to find her, it made her feel important, like they were actually friends. His sarcastic humor distracted her from everything that was bothering her.
°°°

The house was booming when she got home, she could smell the weed before she got to the front door and she knew Calvin's friends were over. Gone were those days her brother had the decency to carry out his shinanigance in secrecy, he'd come home reaking strongly of cheap perfume and mint in order to hide the stench of weed on him, now he didn't care anymore, he did everything right in the open, not giving a damn about the people he was hurting. His addiction addiction had been one of the things to tear them apart. He started smoking before their father left, getting high and disrespecting everyone, making everyone around him miserable. He'd get mad at the slightest thing and insult anyone who tried to calm him down, he had on different occasions hit Chloe. It never went beyond a slap, but it was enough to make her cower in fear, enough to make her look at him differently.

She opened the door and stepped in. She recognized most of the guys he had over. Calvin was two years her senior so they'd been close during high school, after closing hours, Calvin would walk home with his friends while she'd lag behind and they'd all tease her for being the smallest in the group.That was years ago, when things at home were bad but school was a distraction, now they'd all succumbed into it, the misery, they had always been a pack of broken boys who knew how to hide it well, but now they just didn't care to hide it anymore, or maybe they just didn't have the strength.

Now seeing them all launging on the couch, high as a kite brought an ache to her chest. Life was unfair. She bolted up the stairs, not wanting to get noticed. 

The music downstairs couldn't let her read so she decided on calling her Laila who didn't answer. She picked up a pencil and sketched pad, deciding to draw which was a rarity for her.

Her drawing was interrupted by a rasp knock on her door, then she realized she had lost track of time while being immersed in her drawing. The music had stopped and it had gotten dark, she was thankful for it. She shoved her sketch pad aside and stood to open the door since the person behind it was impatient.

She opened it to reveal the last person she wanted to see.

"Hi mum"

"Dinner is ready" she could tell from the undertone in her mother's voice that she wasn't here because of dinner, she was here for a fight.

"I'm not hungry"

"What's with this ansty teen girl bullshit you've got going on huh? You've missed dinner twice this week"

"Since when did you care?"

"Since I gave birth to you Chloe. You've changed, you've started hanging out with bad friends, bringing a boy home and then that girl? What were you two doing till late that night? Drugs? You a junkie now Chloe?"

"Mum I'm not in the mood for this, I have ho-" Chloe didn't get to finish her sentence before the loud sound of skin on skin was heard, and the thudding of footsteps coming up the stairs. Her right ear rang and her eyes watered. She could feel the anger brewing in her veins, could taste the blood in her mouth as she held from lashing out at her mum. She balled her hands into fists and slammed the door shut in her mother's face.

"Open this fucking door Chloe" chloe ignored her, locking the door and leaning against it, she looked to the ceiling, watching the fan roll and trying to distract herself from the chaos outside her room.

She could feel the vibration against her back as her mother pounded the door, yelling for her to open it.

"Open the door you ungrateful piece of shit!" She screamed, "open the fucking door Chloe" she kept screaming while banging relentlessly on the door. Chloe haven had enough stood up and tore the door open to face her mother.

She looked into her mother's green eyes, very different from her browns and all she could see was anger and despair. 

"What do you want?"

"I want you to get your sorry ass downstairs now"

Chloe could have gone, she could have simply gone downstairs to avoid more screams and profanities but she was stubborn. She didn't know who she got her stubbornness from since both her parents were stubborn but she looked her mother square in the eyes and uttered one word, one syllable.

"No"

Her mother threw herself at her.

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Fun fact; I wrote this chapter a year ago and I've been cracking my head, trying to make it fit into the story line and boom ! I figured it out
I added some things and removed some tho
I hope you enjoyed it

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