Frenemies

31

I'm still crying by the time I get home. Once I open my door, I make a move to head upstairs when a voice stops me.

"Juliette Miller", the voice I recognize as my mother says. Holding in a sigh, I turn around to her. She is sitting in the living room by herself. I wonder where my father is. "Where were you last night?", she says and I look down at my phone in my hand. I open it up and toward my text messages to find thirty-five new messages from the group chat with my friends.

I reload the app and yet there isn't any chats from neither of my parents. Nothing to show they truly cared when I was gone last night. She is just asking today. I sigh this time and say,"I was at a friend's house."

"Is he a boy?", my mom asks. I wish that she was as happy for me as she was the other week. But the other week she didn't find out that I was going toward journalism instead of the doctor path that had been carved out for me since I could walk.

"Juliette, get in here", I hear my mother shouting as soon as I walk in the room. I find my mother at the coffee table with a paper in her hand. I recognize the logo immediately. MIT.

"What's this?", she asks me and I walk further into the room.

"Acceptance letter from MIT", I reply back. I've gotten accepted a month ago, so I'm not sure where she got the paper from now.

As if she could read my mind, she says,"I found it in your room. What's this about your major?"

Shit.

"I want to major in Journalism", I say standing my ground. I knew this day would come.

"The hell you are", a new voice says and I find my father walking into the room. "To do what? Write stories?", he laughs, his voice booming down the room.

"I like writing", I say and my mother gives me a stern look. "I want to make an impact with my voice, and journalism can give me that."

"You can make an actual impact working as a doctor", my dad says coming up behind my mother, the emphacism heavy on the word actual. My mom gives him a look and then at me. I recognize it, it is a mock sadness.

"Your father and I laid out a path for you, we want you to become a doctor", my mom says softly.

We.

"Well, I don't want that", I shout back, my heart beating fast against my chest. I've known this day would come, I knew that one day I'd have to tell them.

"Since when?", my mom has the audacity to ask.

"Since forever!", I shout back and walk over to her to grab the paper off of her hand. My mom rips it out of my grip and hands it to my father. Disappointed, I turn to my father.

"We raised you to be better than this, Jules", he says softly, disappointment written all over his face.

This is what I was afraid of. I was afraid of hurting them. I was afraid of feeling the guilt. My hand goes to my thigh and I press on it. No pain comes, I need the pain. Why did it already heal?