Style | Dallas Winston

Chapter Four

"I watch the moon, let it run my mood, can't stop thinking of you," -Tek It, Cafune

Maeve slammed her door, stalked over to her bed, and plopped down. She had just gotten into an argument with her mom. It wasn't serious, but she was already stressed about school, and she had gotten angry.

She opened her bedside drawer and pulled out a Marlboro box and a lighter, before opening her window that screeched in protest. Her mom didn't like it when she smoked in the house. Actually, she didn't like that she smoked at all, but you couldn't go anywhere in this town without breathing it in so what did it matter?

The anger had started to wear off and she started to feel guilty for taking out her stress and irritation on her mom. She knew that was the type of thing that her father did, knowing she got her anger issues from him.

Maeve's dad wasn't abusive—not physically anyways. She supposed she shouldn't complain about him, given the type of fathers her friends had, but he was an asshole. He was controlling, bipolar, and emotionally manipulative. He made Maeve and her mom miserable for years. Even though sometimes he could be the nicest person ever, get her gifts, apologize for what he did, and promise to never do it again. It didn't matter. Because at the end of the day, he would do it all over again.

At some point she stopped caring whether he was yelling at her or being nice. She hated him, and didn't put any effort into having a relationship with him. A few years ago her parents got separated, and she tried the whole split custody thing, but living with her dad was so emotionally draining that she decided to live with her mom permanently. He threw a fit of course, yelled, cried, guilt tripped, but eventually he decided to move to Missouri to be closer to his family. He still sends cards to Maeve and calls ever so often, asking her when she'll visit and wanting to see her, but she always makes up excuses of why she can't.

"I smell smoke. Are you smoking?" her mom shouted from the kitchen, breaking her train of thought.

"No," she yelled back, halfway out the window with a cancer stick in hand.

Her mom then walked in her room, looking angry upon seeing Maeve.

"You lied to me! Put that out, I'm sick of you smoking.  You're gonna get lung cancer, and you only do it because all of your little friends do!" she scolded

"It's not that big of a deal mom," she said, stubbing out her cigarette on the window sill

"It is, and I better not catch you smoking in this house again! Now go to bed, it's getting late," her mom said, giving her the mom look, and walking out.

Even though she was already planning on going to bed, she didn't want to anymore now that her mom told her to.

If I can't smoke inside, I'll go outside

Maeve grabbed her jacket off the post of her bed and put it on. She made sure to grab her switchblade because you could never be too careful in this town, and hopped out her window. She made sure to leave it slightly open so that she could get back inside, then walked off. 

She lit another cigarette while slowly walking down the sidewalk of her street. She didn't live in a particularly bad neighborhood—she was closer to middle class than most of her friends—but she was still on edge walking in the street at night.