ADD IT UP ✰ RODRICK HEFFLEY x MALE! OC

SUSAN (CH. 9)

Susan thought she had her fair share of the trials and tribulations of motherhood. Her sons were not the cookie-cutter star athletes that her husband had hoped for, yet she still adored them. Her oldest was a prankster, sure, yet he was still so aspirational. Having faith in a career almost destined to fail was difficult for Susan, but seeing the way that her son's eyes lit up at the drum kit made it all the more worth it.

Her middle son, however, spent hours upon hours in front of a desk. His room was a tornado of comic ideas, some skewed across the floor, others crumpled up and thrown away in the trash. Sure, his creations tended to be crude and offensive in nature, but his creativity would always shine through. However, these comics would never make it past his bedroom door, but Susan would catch glimpses of them when she came in to tidy up.

The youngest was a trickster, yet Susan loved him to bits. In fact, she adored all three of her sons. They displayed so much growth, and brilliance, and determination over the past four years. But there was a part of her that she wished she could quench. A disgusting, utterly revolting part of her, that she truly desired to silence.

She wanted a daughter. After two sons, even after her body was way too old to bear children, she had Manny. And he was perfect. But he wasn't enough to squander her desire for a daughter.

But her daughter would appear at her doorstep one day. The daughter that she watched grow up, yet never interact with. Until a month ago.

When Yvonne Macey returned to Surrey Street on that early-April morning, it was a dream come true.

Susan just wished that her circumstances weren't so tragic. Looking at Bonnie's disheveled hair, dirty clothes, and tired eyes absolutely shattered Susan's heart. She remembered the Surrey Street Mommy Group, when the Maceys were the topic of every gossip meet.

"Have you heard about Diana Macey? Apparently her husband and kids had to live with the Barlows for a week while she completely trashed their house!"

"A woman like that shouldn't be allowed to have children. Her poor daughters!"

And secretly, Susan agreed. She wished that she could take the Macey children far away from their mother, even more so when she observed how much they had changed since the last time they saw them. Miles grew a solid foot tall— his clothes were clean, but ill-fitting, his ankles peeking out of his pants. Bonnie's, on the other hand, appeared old, and ratty. Despite suspecting that her mother may have involvement, she decided not to pry. Even after Rodrick's outing with his ex-girlfriend to the Macey apartment caused him to resurrect his skin-picking habit— one that did not exhibit itself since the boy was thirteen.

Then one day, Rodrick came home from a gig, unimaginably distraught.

✰

"Honey! You're home early! How was the gig?" Susan looked up from the papers she was grading. It was eleven o' clock at night— Greg was doing who-knows-what in his bedroom, and Manny was fast asleep. But Rodrick's face was pale and blotchy, his eyes exhausted, red, and puffy. "Oh...sweetheart, what happened?"

Every suspicion, every rumor that Susan had about the Macey family was confirmed in Rodrick's explanation. The abuse, the obvious Stockholm syndrome, everything seemed to fall into place like the pieces of a convoluted puzzle.

Susan looked at her son quizzically and raised her eyebrows. "Where's all this coming from? I don't remember you telling me anything personal since you were five." She smiled warily at him, but Rodrick harshly interjected.

"This isn't the time!" he exclaimed, immediately apologizing afterwards. "Sorry," he muttered.

"I understand that you were just trying to help. But you're sixteen, Rodrick. You're a kid. It shouldn't be your responsibility to shoulder things like this."

"I just don't think kids should have to raise their parents," Rodrick stated, bluntly.

"And David Macey was a great father. It's just been really hard on their family after he passed," Susan pointed out. "But it shouldn't be a guy that Miles has known for two months to tell him that his life isn't ideal. You're a teenager, not a therapist."

Rodrick shrugged, and trudged up the stairs to his bedroom.

And for the second time in all of her career as a mother, Susan didn't pry. Not when Rodrick didn't leave his room for a week. Not when the food she gave to Rodrick was continually left uneaten outside of his bedroom door. Not when she checked her voicemail and was greeted by fifty-two missed calls from the school, Ben, and Lyndsey.

Not when he finally went to school the next week, and came home with Heather Hills.

Not when Heather Hills started making more frequent appearances at her home than even Rowley did.

Not when, as quickly as they came, the Maceys vanished from Susan's life.

AUTHOR'S NOTE
This was a quick little writing exercise that I did! Let me know if mini character explorations are something that would interest you, because I had a lot of fun writing this and I really hope they're just as fun to read.