𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐁𝐀𝐆, rodrick heffley

22. willing to try

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜
chapter twenty-two: willing to try

[a/n]: i genuinely am so sorry for not updating in such a long time. i feel like i always say this and then proceed to go inactive the same way, but i swear i'm sorry! i have just been lacking motivation lately but i'm trying!!
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✶˚⋆°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･━━━ RODRICK HEFFLEY LAYS IN HIS BED sluggishly, raking his fingers through a bag of jalapeño-flavored Cheetos, bobbing his head to one of Löded Diper's demos because he really is just that narcissistic. He frowns at the bag, being reminded of his first date with Haley to the gas station, and she'd picked out these same chips. Her smile had been so wide and bright, like it could illuminate all of Plainview. He really messed up, didn't he? Rodrick shoves the plastic bag away, which responds with a sharp crinkling.

There's a strong rapping on the door, likely his mom, but Rodrick feigns ignorance in hopes that she'll go away. He'd really like to be alone right now.

"Rodrick," his mom calls out from the other side of the door. "Rodrick!" she repeats. Fed up with her son's stubborn behavior, she opens the door with a faint click. "Rodrick, you need to get up and do something. Normally, I wouldn't be putting my foot down, but all you've been doing is moping around your room, hardly coming downstairs for meals—— this is my intervention, you have to get up and do something."

"I don't want to," Rodrick replies petulantly, putting his headphones back on.

Frustrated, his mom walks over to his bed and snatches the headset, clutching it tightly behind her back before sitting down in front of her son. "Rodrick, this is not normal, even for you. What's going on?"

"Nothing," Rodrick says coolly, reaching for his headset.

His mom only raises it higher in the air tauntingly as her eyebrows shoot into her forehead challengingly. "Rodrick, do not lie to me—— you know how I feel about that. Now tell me, what is going on with you?"

 Rodrick sighs, opening and closing his mouth like a fish, his defiance waning as he realizes his mom isn't going to be leaving him alone or giving his headset back to him any time soon. He sighs a second time, running his hand through his matted hair. "I told you I was hanging out with Haley against my will so you would pay me Mom Bucks but I was also pretending to date her to get rid of her ex-boyfriend, then she found out I was getting paid after some stuff happened and she fake-dumped me. Then, I tried to get her back by doing a gig at Heather Hills' birthday party and ended up wrecking the entire thing and then she slapped me." He takes a breath. "There, are you happy?"

"Far from it! Rodrick, what were you thinking? I did not raise you to be like this."

"Cool it, Mom!" Rodrick groans, flopping his head further back onto his pillow. "Don't you think I've been punished enough?"

Speechless, Susan Heffley stares at her son, still absorbing the overwhelming amount of information she has just received. She then diplomatically folds her hands over her lap and says, "Well, I normally do not condone violence, but it sounds like you deserved that slap."

 "Mom, seriously, I don't need to hear it," Rodrick replies sharply, his brooding attitude causing Susan to quirk one of her brows, debating whether or not to scold him. "What do I do now?"

Susan draws a deep breath, thinking. Perhaps she's been too preoccupied with the paper and other various duties to focus on her children's personal lives as much as she should. "Rodrick, I don't know. It sounds like you were arrogant. Maybe you should be focusing on fixing the part of you that made a mistake instead of the mistake itself. You should give Haley some space for a while."