Some Day One Day

52

A tracking device.
That's how they had found him.
I should've known their open desirousness to me going to prom with him came with some hidden agenda. It came with a price.
How they verified him as the driver was because of the dirty cops following him around, camouflaging with their surroundings so as to prowl unnoticed. Strange because Shawn was a very vigilantly observant and keen individual to his surroundings. Something like that wouldn't have passed him by but with my little knowledge of the crafty way the law enforcement was reputed to work left me feeling it was no surprise that he hadn't seen any of this coming.
The fear that terribly overwhelmed me though, was how long they'd been watching Shawn. It would take no rocket scientist to figure out what he'd been doing and with cops who dealt with issues such as those on a daily basis it was as easy as pointing out the sun during a thunderstorm.
If he got put away for that one thing that he hated to do so much, all his hard work, all his sleepless nights, all the deep anguish...his entire life would be in shambles.
The thought made me sick to my stomach and I recoiled, glancing at the ring on my finger. It had all been my idea yet he was suffering for it. I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted nothing to do with me now.
"Beyonce I'm going to ask you for the last time. What was it that you did that you had to lie to me about where you were for the past two days?"
A scornfully recalcitrant smirk lifted my lips at my mother's gumption and I couldn't help but shake my head at her. She had a whole lot of nerve so much that for a few moments I was ashamed to call her my mother. My gut told me she knew good and well what we had gone off to do. That was why she continued beleaguering me, aiming a plethora of questions at me like I was the target and her mouth was the bow, her words the arrows. Each question was razor sharp, slicing down the bulwark of protection I had cocooned around me.
Never in my life had I viewed my mother in the unwholesome, repulsive semblance that I did that night. I could've sworn I could see the kind of illusionary horns that wormed a villain's temples projecting from my mother's head. There was some diabolic demonical ambience I sensed from her usually composed character that I hadn't before in my life. Something that gave me the impression that something deeper than the current subject at hand; something beneath the surface was bothering her immensely about this whole issue.
I couldn't quite put my finger on it but at that point I'm not too sure I cared to. All I knew was that the demon of her was here and it was tormenting me now.
Reclined against the wooden jamb window in the office room, my fingers all held the wooden-curved ball attached to a chain of the lamp, tagging at it at a slow temperance serving as a therapeutic act so as to not lose my mind. The interchanging of turning the lamp off and on set my portion of the room to light up and dusk up unnaturally. My head against the window jamb, I watched the flip-floppy junction of light and dark rivulets of waterfalls on the pane from the rain that struck it steadily.
"Will you stop that Beyonce? It's driving me insane. Either leave it on or off. One or the other."
Ignoring her, I continued the off and on task gazing at the raging storm through the window. It shouldn't have worried her so much because the other two lamps gave enough light in the room for me not to cause hindrance on anyone else's sight that was in it.
But to hell with anyone else and their hindrances. What mattered most right now wasn't even my own but Shawn's.
My confounded state was forced, for I was trying with all my little will not to contemplate what Shawn might be doing or how he might be treated. We'd only been home merely thirty minutes and by the time my parents had me in the car I was beyond sobbing and reduced to crying silent tears.
Right now I did the same, my tears now surrogate to the words that my voice could not speak. Seated on his cathedra without the prominent and authoritative stature he evoked my father sat quietly. Like usual he was reserved but I got the gut wrenching impression that his calm was imposed. I didn't care though.
Right now I cared about anything.
I tried not to care about Shawn's well being in that jail cell because the merest thought of it brought me closer and closer to the frontier of insanity. Just the thought of him telling me to 'go' wielded another tear out of my right eye. The painful throbbing in my chest deepened and I felt as though someone was pouring acid onto a heart that was slowly losing its beat.
"Beyonce. I'm going to ask you one last time. Why were you and that boy at the hotel alone? Why did you lie to us? What were you doing?!"
"We got married." I told her artlessly, no apology in my tone.
My mother's theatrical sharp cry was of no substance to me. I didn't even bother acknowledge her expression and when I heard a scorching curse word from her not even that could move me-despite the fact that it might've been the third time I'd ever heard her such a word from her in my eighteen years of living. My father remained silent. What I heard next was some rambunctious shuffling along with some panicked murmurs from my mother.
"Crystal what are you doing?" my father's quiet came to an end at my mother's outburst, forcing me to look at the source of his reason to finally speak after endless silence.
After what my parents had pulled tonight I was certain nothing else would ever shock me but seeing my mother pull out a cigarette stack from my father's high shelves made me retract that certainty.
A day ago my reaction would've been ostentatiously wild but now all I could do was sit and stare. My mother-the woman who wrinkled her nose every time odor of nicotine was present-actually had a cigarette pack in her house. I guess you never really do know people as well as you think do you?
"Do you have a lighter?" my mother stuttered frantically, moistened her quivering lips with the tip of her tongue and wiped her free hand against her hip.
"Why would I have one? Put it down Crystal." My father ordered her evenly but his eyes smoldered temperamentally. He was bristling with a rage that even catching me in the act of practically running away with some other guy hadn't been there.
"I need a lighter. My god. My god." My mother rambled endlessly, foraging the perches on my father's office desk desperately to get to his drawer. Looking over her dainty shoulder my mother glared at my hand and when I followed her direct gaze I saw that she was eyeing my ring.
"That's where that ring came from?" her face was flushed with horror and bafflement. Boldly and proudly, I nodded reveling in the irate way here eyelids lowered.
"Crystal stop it!" my father's rough demand was enough to shake the room more than the thunder from the storm had done that night and he grabbed her wrist with more emphasis in hopes to cease her maddened state.
"Why do you have those cigarettes in my house to begin with?" he yelled at her and from the anger that brewed from him I thought there might have been another covert meaning to his interrogation that only he and my mother were aware of. The way her perfect brows drew a frustrating line in between them let me know his words had hit a soft spot.
"Let me go!" my mother wrenched her wrist free and whipped at me. She was like a container of trapped anger whose lid had suddenly popped off due to the pressure of all that anger building.
"My god. My god I knew we shouldn't have allowed her to go to prom-"
"For Christ sake Crystal the girl can't be cramped up in the house for the rest of her life." He said arguably.
My father's subtle defense of me was yet another startling shocker other than my mother's bleak revelation that she considered smoking. It gave me the inkling that she might have smoked in her past.
Clearly I was not the only one surprised because my mother's browbeaten frail body from this experience tensed.
"Of course she needs to live her life but...but not this way."
"We...may have been too harsh. We could've handled it differently" My father murmured and lowered his eyes from her as though disappointed in himself.
"No! We weren't harsh enough which is why she made such a pitiful idiotic mistake. Didn't I tell you I knew she wouldn't go home with Angie? I knew she was going to do something like this. As soon as she turned eighteen she's been getting more and more rowdy." My mother began to pace, one hand clenching onto the cigarette as though it were her last source of breath, "Now she goes and tries to ruin her life-"
"Her life isn't ruined. Her choices may have been a little bit rash and eccentric but her life isn't ruined Crystal."
"If it hadn't been for us Dennis what would have happened? Did she even think about where she was going to live after this so called marriage? What about college? Having a career and a stable life first before all this nonsense? She doesn't even have a sense of self worth anymore all she thinks about now is trailing behind that...thug...like some dog who can't make decisions of her own. And my god to get married to someone like that-we have to do something about this. Why can't you be like your sister and work towards something?" she shook her head assertively, "...no I wont let you throw your life way over this stupidity that you think is love. First thing tomorrow we're getting it annulled."
"No!" my shriek nearly rattled those windows more than the storm did as I surged to my feet. My hand left the lamp and fell in a rigid fist to my side. I wanted to hit something, someone, anything.
"Don't get started with me." my mother warned and brought the cigarette to her mouth as she moved away, cursing viciously when she remembered it was not lit.
"I'm not going to get it annulled." I swore adamantly but in a voice that was soft, hugging myself against all of these coldly adverse happenings.
"He's brainwashed her," my mother snarled, "Just like that man brainwashed Meredith."
The name of my deceased auntie's name being spoken made me swing angered eyes at my mother.
Did she know that Shawn was one of the only people who gave a damn about me when I was dealing with the depression of my auntie's death? Did she not know he was one of the only people who gave me a shoulder to cry on?
What did she know about him? Nothing! Yet she felt this authority to judge him so indecorously for no apparent reason!
"Aunt Meredith has nothing to do with this..." I told her lowly.
"Oh? Then why are you just like her? This is exactly how she started. Exactly how she started. Everyone else warned her about this man and she wouldn't listen-"
"This is different! Shawn has never asked anything of me! That man was only using Aunt Meredith for his own benefits! Shawn only wants me to do better-"
"This is too painful for me to bear, to hear. Do you know you sound just like her? These are the same words she used when everyone warned her about him!"
"I am not like her! I'm not going to end up on the streets like she did! I'm not going to end up giving up my life. Don't you see Shawn makes me want to live?! Why is that so fucking hard for you to see?!"
"Stop it!" my mother's palm cracked on the polished wood of my father's desk to make her demand resonant and clear, "Stop that nonsense right now!"
"I'm not going to get the marriage annulled." I stressed, shaking my head with an obduracy that said nothing could change my mind.
Nothing.
"Beyonce-" my father began and I shook my slipshod head of long hair vehemently. .
"I love him Daddy. I'm not doing it." I vowed tearfully to him only for his frown to deepen. It actually appeared that he was pitying me.
"I understand that. But marriage...at such a young age...I'm not sure that's really clever move Beyonce."
"Then let me be a fool. I don't care. I'm not doing it." eyes brimming with tears I stared pleadingly yet helplessly at my father who stared right back with resigned eyes, their almond shape of which mine held a spitting resemblance.
"First thing tomorrow." My mother's terse response before the sound of her heels clanking the terrazzo floor remained the only sound for a couple of minutes. An unbearable pressure began to oppress me, to back me into a corner with absolutely no way out. I realized that my refusal would only harm Shawn further more.
"I won't get the marriage annulled unless you drop the charges. " I capitulated uneasily, too spent to fight any longer.
At my ultimatum a noisy quiet filled the room save the raging storm.
"Shawn never stole the car and both of you know it," I continued, "I let him use it because the weather was terrible and he had to take care of some things. I couldn't let him go out into a storm like that. How the two of you found out he used it, how you stooped low to actually stalk him I will never understand. I always knew you two were protective but never overbearing until this point."
"What kind of things?" my mother turned around, her arms folded. When I looked at her I noticed she'd let the cigarette fall beside her feet.
"At one point in my life I thought that protective nature to be safe."
"It does ensure you safety." My mother said.
"Well I'd rather live dangerously if that's what it means to truly live. How can someone learn about life living in the shadows of it all the time? How much longer do you think I'm going to let you guys fight my battles? Do you know what Shawn made me realize? I don't have a spine without you guys. I don't have a mind of my own. I'm ignorant about the world because you guys keep me from it."
"And I suppose selling yourself to another soul is better? If being with this boy helps you be an independent individual why must he be attached to everything you do? say we really are your backbone is it any better that you use him as a clutch when we're not around? This was foolish of you Beyonce-to think marriage at such a dismally young age will solve everything. Life isn't a fairytale-"
"Life isn't a tragedy either and you'd understand that if you knew what true love was."
"He has made such a fool of you. I didn't raise a fool but some unrealistic love dumbs you down. When will you learn that love isn't the center of all life?"
"It's the center of mine!" I retorted and my mother scoffed haughtily.
"This is ridiculous. This is really-"
"Crystal that's enough. We'll have them dropped if you get the marriage annulled."
My father continued to look squarely at me, ignoring my mother's clear irritation at his words.
Gnawing at the gum of my cheek in pressuring deliberation, I glared right back at my parents distrustfully.
"If he's still in jail by the end of the week consider your precious daughter dead." After that the room got so quiet we could hear the wind howling from the outside. My claim to suicide was a bold threat but it wasn't an empty one. I meant every word that I said and what surprised me was that I wasn't afraid of taking my own life in defense to all this. Right now as I knew it, I was only half a heart, skipping a beat every time I tried to breath. Every other beat of me belonged to my other half and as long as I didn't have him by my side I wouldn't be whole.
This time my mother's ghastly reaction was silent-her lips parted and her eyes widened. Spasms shot through my father's jaw but his mouth was firmly but grimly set. His eyes had grown alarmingly only a moment before narrowing and looking towards the window.
Spinning on my still bare feet I walked unhurriedly to the glass plated door that exited the office.
"Beyonce!" my mother wailed.
"Let her go-"
That sparked off another argument between my parents but I chose to ignore it when I shut off the door until some peculiar words my father spat at my mom.
"You're upset with her not because she's like Meredith or anyone else but because she's just like you!"
My father's words brought me to a halt and they seemed to have stricken silence to my mother too because she didn't retort like she normally would.
"I don't agree with her getting her mind wrapped around some boy so seriously right now to the point of marriage but Crystal this time you have gone too far. You're afraid because you're seeing your life take place right before your eyes so stop trying to act like its anything else. Now leave her alone and let her be for the rest of the night. I mean it Crystal."
The words had frozen me more rigidly into place and all I did was stand there even after the silence followed. Whatever my father meant could've been the one truism that had been bothering my mother greatly. I could only wonder what but with all that as they kept from me I didn't rely on finding out. Faint footsteps grew nearer and nearer until my father stepped out of the shadows of the room to find me looking at him through a wooden framed glass door. Again that pitying frown he'd worn all evening blanketed his lips. It only served to anger me more because although he behaved like it hurt him to see me this way he still didn't want to let me live my life the way I wanted it.
Whether they were right or wrong, for a fleeting moment I actually wished that both of them would burn in hell.
Like any normal young woman I'd had many arguments with my parents but none had ever led to that dangerous thought.
They only enlightened me that I was truly loosing my mind, and with that revelation I turned away from my father and fled to the stairs that led to my room.