Falling For Fiction

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

     When I arrive home, mom stands in the living room with a stern expression on her face.

Here we go.

I force myself to smile. “Hi mom, Claudia had dance practice after school, so I’m going to—“

“Sit,” she commands.

     I immediately do what she says. If this isn’t about Claudia, then what is it about? She joins me on the coach, clears her throat and pats her red hair, before saying, “So, I suspect your father called you today.”

“Yeah he did. Did you know he’s getting married and then he had the audacity to invite Claudia and me.”

“Guinevere, I want you to go.”

I blink. “What?”

“Your father loves you and your sister and when we divorced, that didn’t change.”

“How can he love us when he’s never around? He only contacted us five years ago and then gave up.”

“Well, he’s making an effort now and I think you should give him a chance.”

“I don’t know mom. He’s a total flake. What he did to you—to us, I don’t know if I could ever forgive him.”

She jerks my chin up, forcing me to look into her hazel eyes, the only trait Claudia and I both inherited from her. “I forgave him. Your father and I just weren’t compatible. Don’t let our past faults determine your relationship with him. Even Claudia forgave him.”

“That’s because he offered us an expense paid trip to Europe.” I mutter.

She glares at me before standing to her feet. “Just think about what I said, okay?”

    Once she leaves me to my thoughts, I fall back against the cushions. Forgive him? Since mom can, then I could too. I bite my lip as I think about how heartbroken she was when she found out about the affair. She stopped going into work and was like an immobile rock as he lay around in her room all day. If she can come out of that then I’ll be okay in the end too right? I take my phone out my pocket and stare at it for what seemed like forever when it lit up with a message, from Claudia. I open my phone and read what she sent.

I’ll be riding home when one of my friends again, so don’t wait up. –C

Surely she can’t know that many Sophomores. How many were she friends with? She’s not hiding something from me is she? I shake my head because I’m starting to feel like my mother when she was concerned about me when I was a freshman, of course that was for different reasons. I text back a quick reply and sigh as I look at my default screen.

Virgil why won’t you call?

    The blood-drive is boring and to think that I’m going to have to do this four times throughout the year. I’m on sign-in duty, which means I stand at a table by the gym doors and hand a clip board to people to check them in or out of the event. I also see if they are who they say they are by checking their school ID. It’s a pretty tedious job, but I try to make it interesting by pretending I’m a security guard at an illegal blood bank.

       My imagination will take me places one day. I sigh and drum my fingers against the table. My partner hadn’t come back from her bathroom break, so I was holding down the fort alone and people were annoyed that they had to wait in line when only one person was in charge. I feel someone sit beside me.

“It’s about time you made it back,” I mutter as I check someone in.

“Sorry, you’re partner as a little, occupied for the moment, so she asked me to step in.”