It Wasn't Me

Chapter One

"I can't believe you!" My dad screamed. He was pacing now. This was never good news with my dad. This meant he was thinking about the situation a lot more than I really wanted him to.

"Dad, I'm telling you! It wasn't me!" I yelled back at him.

"Oh, so now I'm a liar, Dylan?! I can't believe you could possibly be so irresponsible."

"But dad! I swear it wasn't me!"

"Sure it wasn't, just like it 'wasn't' you last month who stole my credit card and bought an SUV. I mean really Dylan, an SUV? Of all cars." I could tell he was getting side-tracked.

My father is an ex-conman. He used to take me to a crowded area when I was younger, where he would teach me the different 'skills' he learned as a kid from his dad, such as pickpocketing or posing a homeless person begging for money. He only brought me along for the homeless person con because he got more money from people if it looked like he had a starving kid with him he was struggling to feed. All of this was back before he met step-mom, about four years ago. Something inside of my con-man of a father had changed when he met her, like a switch had turned off. She was kind and sweet and would nearly never get upset. Until about a year ago.

She and my dad got married about a year after they met; I was only about nine. She had moved in with me, Dad, and my little brother, Asher. We had really liked her at first, but then she started to stay out late and get home even later.

Once I couldn't sleep so I got up and tip toed to the kitchen to get something to drink on until I started to get tired.
It was when I had turned off the kitchen light and started to walk back to my and Asher's room when I heard the front door start to be unlocked. I sprinted and hid behind the couch, peeking out to see who was going to come through the door, even though i had a pretty good idea of who it was going to be.

Sure enough, the door opened and in came my mom. It was pretty dark but I could make out that she was wearing something that looked like something that someone from a hospital would wear. I was only about ten so I didn't quite understand, at first, why she would wear something like that. Then looking back I probably thought that she was some awesome life saving doctor or something, but she probably just worked the nightshift or something as one of those annoying nurses that have to check up on a new patient to see if they're doing okay.

When she got into the house, she put down her keys next to her purse and walked toward her and my dad's room. When I heard the door quietly close, I got up from behind the couch and quickly walked back to my room. That was weird for me. I had never thought my mom would have to take the night shift somewhere. Maybe that's why she's always staying home during the day while Asher and I are at school.

She was coming home from work one night and dad had been up late and was reading book in the livingroom. I guess she'd been sneaking out in the middle of the night after qdad had crashed and came back before dad woke up to go to work. I never knew she had it in her to keep a job like that away from us, but I guess she did.

We don't really talk about her much any more. Dad said he wouldn't tell me the whole story about the night she had left until I was older, too; same for Asher. Even though I was in our room, I could still barely hear the argument between both of them. I heard some screaming then it calmed down, the. Some more screaming after a couple minutes then a door slammed. I could tell one of them had left because it was dead quiet after the door was shut aggressively. I knew dad wouldn't of left me and Asher so that meant she had left. It was hard for me to understand and deal with, but I soon got over it.

"Nevermind, that doesn't matter," my dad had started again. "what matters is that you lit an abandoned motel on damn fire!"

"Dad I told you it wasn't me!"

"Stop lying to my face, Dylan!" I wasn't lying. Okay, yes, I had gone out that night but that was only because my friend, Jake, had texted me saying that he had something to show me and it was really important. I left to check it out and of course all it was was a lame rubber band ball. Jake was easily fascinated by the stupidest things and had the need to share them with me any time of the day.

By the time I had gotten back, the t.v was turned on to the news channel, my dad was freaking out, and I'm pretty sure Asher was in our room, about to go to bed.

Great, I thought, what'd dad get himself into this time. My dad spotted me as I climbed back inside through one of the windows.

"You are in huge trouble." He said. I had no clue what he was talking about until he pointed at the T.V screen. I looked over and a reporter was talking with a headline at the bottom of the screen that said teen burns abandoned motel to ground.

What does this have to do with me? I thought. I kept watching for a few seconds when the news channel showed what I'm pretty sure was a security tape. I was still pretty confused on why i had anything to do with this until I saw a person walk into the motel. A person who looked exactly like me.