"For you? I'd hold the skies on my shoulders, if it came down to it."
*****
He didn't think she'd ever look his way. Let alone, stumble into him- and into his life. But all things happen for a reason, and sometimes- when you love someone from afar...
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I THINK MY parents assumed I was bluffing when I said I had a lawyer.
But when Mikael Nilsson turns up, decked in a suit, with a lawyer-y looking briefcase in hand, I can see both their eyes go wide in shock.
Even Principal Saunders looks a little stunned.
"Good evening," Mikael says, his voice lacking its usual warmth as he stares at my family with disdain, "I'm Ms. Dunnams' lawyer. What seems to be the matter?"
"This-This is ridiculous," my mother sputters, once she can finally manage to find her voice, "We don't need a hotshot man to tell us what we can do with our daughter."
"Ophelia, that's enough," my father's voice sounds sharper than before, without the deceiving lilt of pleading, "You are upset with us, and we know it. You can stop this nonsense now and come home."
"Anything you want to say to my client, you will address to me," Mikael says with a calm smile, but the threat in his words doesn't go unnoticed. It shuts my parents right up.
My brother, if I even want to call him that anymore, hadn't said a word so far. His glare switches between me, and the desk in front of him.
"So," Mikael looks back at Principal Saunders, who shrinks under his stare, "I shall ask again. What seems to be the problem?"
Principal Saunders takes a minute to clear his throat and straighten.
"Well," he says, in an attempt to sound composed, "This young lady's parents want her to return home."
"After they threw her out?"
"Now we didn't throw her out," my father protests, and I want to scoff, "That's an exaggeration, a negative one, that-"
"You told her," Mikael interrupts calmly, "that it was time for her to be independent, and that you wanted her to find a place to start doing things independently. Is that correct? And don't attempt to deny it or call my client a liar."
My father's face turns red. Whether it's because of embarrassment, anger, or both I couldn't care.
"We might have said something like that," my mother says slowly to diffuse the situation, "But-"
"Then, why are you demanding that she returns, after you explicitly told her to leave?"
I look up at Mikael, thanking my Nan with every single fiber of my being, for leaving me someone like him.
Both my parents look like they're slowly starting to lose their temper.
"Because she is our daughter," my father grits out and I want to scoff again.
"She is also a legal adult," Mikael returns coolly, "She is eighteen and under no legal obligation to return. And you-"
He turns to Principal Saunders who startles. "I would assume that a lead educator like yourself would know better than to pull the girl out of class to address this."
