Behave Yourself

I want you to pay attention

Chapter 4

The same day, 9:20 am

In the bunker

Katie's POV

I'm in Dad's room, tuning him out while he talks to me about "respect", or whatever.

Dad: And I don't send you to school to misbehave. I send you to school to learn. I send you there to get an education. But instead of paying attention and doing your work, you'd rather talk back to your teachers and draw in your notebook. The notebook that's only supposed to be for school work. You have notebooks for drawing, Katie. And they stay at home, because you don't need to be drawing at school. You need to be paying attention.

If that belt wasn't sitting right there, I'd have probably left the room by now. No. Definitely. I'd have definitely left the room by now. I've been sitting here, listening to him lecture me, for 5 minutes, and I'm already tired of it. I'm tired of this conversation, and I'd like to do something else.

Dad: I've asked you to look at me, 3 times already, Katie. If you're not looking at me, how do I know you're listening?

I'm not. Why do you think I'm not looking at you? I'm not listening. I don't wanna talk about this. We talk about this, every day. I already know what you're gonna say, so there's no point in listening.

Katie: I'm not.

Dad: You admit that like it's ok. Like I'm not trying to have a serious conversation with you.

Katie: Do you want me to lie?

Dad: No, Katie. I want you to pay attention. This is part of the reason we're having this talk. Again. You don't listen when I'm talking to you. Or at least, when I'm trying to be serious with you. If I'm talking to you about something serious, or if it's just something that you don't wanna talk about, you don't listen. You tune me out until I'm done, and you think I don't notice that you weren't listening. I notice, Katie. I know you've already started tuning me out, and it's not ok. The longer you refuse to listen, the longer we're gonna be sitting here. So if you're not gonna listen, you're gonna be sitting here all day. And I do have all day, Katie. I have all day, to try and make you understand why you're behavior isn't ok.

Great. I just made the lecture longer. Fucking awesome. I don't wanna be sitting here, now. And I'm not gonna wanna be sitting here, in an hour. Don't get me wrong. I like it in Dad's room, and I like talking to Dad, but I hate it when he lectures me. It's always the same lecture, about the same shit. I don't wanna have this same conversation anymore. He could at least try to make it different. In a way that's not threatening me with his belt. I'm actually a little intimidated by it. He's never used the belt on me. Even when I was a kid, he only spanked a few times. And he only ever spanked me for "necessary reasons". He never used the belt on me. And now he's threatening me with it? How fucking rude.

Dad: Katie. He raises his voice a little, making me look up at him.

I hadn't even realized that I looked back down.