Wherever You Go [Katy Perry Fan fiction]

Chapter Sixty-Eight

I sat slouched in my chair, my fork picking at the bits of food on my plate. It had been roughly ten minutes since my mom had left the table, and honestly? There must have been a maximum of five words spoken. I was the bad guy right now; the one that had spoiled the mood and made the atmosphere now awkward and uncomfortable for everybody.
My dad had followed behind my mom just a couple of seconds after she'd stormed out of the room, insisting that she had been a little 'under the weather' recently and was probably just tired. The worst excuse in the book, but no one questioned it. Though to be fair, I don't think they dared.
The last thing I wanted in the world right now was to fight with her. Neither her or I had the strength in us for that. We needed each other for support.
With a heavy sigh I placed my fork back on the plate. "I gotta go sort this out," I mutter, causing a few heads to turn my way, sympathetic smiles sent over in my direction.
"Sammie, Katy's just being Katy. Leave her to it." Mary says, and as harmless and innocent as her comment was, I have to admit that it aggravated me to a point where I found myself scrunching my hands into fists as they hung loosely at my sides.
"She's clearly upset." I shoot back.
I could see Grandma Ann shaking her head in her shadow that cast along the Navy blue wall just beside me, causing me to look in her direction. She placed down the glass of white wine that she had just been sipping and released a breath of air. "Attention getter. She's always been the same."
I stared at Shannon, warning her through my eyes that I was on the edge of loosing it completely. She sat in her seat, locks of thick, wavy brown hair falling at her sides, and a pair of eyes that looked as though they didn't really know where to look, scanning the room nervously, too afraid of making eye contact with someone in case she gave something away.
"She's upset, what do you expect?"
"Yeah," Keith agrees, "but there was still no need to leave the table and cause a scene."
"You know what," the chair forcefully hit the wall as I stood up so quickly that I barely had any time to find my balance, "neither of you know anything, so drop it."
It was my turn now. I turned from the table and headed straight for the door, not bothering to even take notice of what Mary was saying as she called after me. I didn't intend on snapping like I did, I guess I just, lost it a little.
As I marched my way through the kitchen, my hands still trembling with anger, I spotted a black head of hair fiddling with the front door, and suddenly I found my steps getting quicker until I was jogging across the lounge.
"Mom, wait," I say through breaths, and I see her hand drop from the handle once she's opened the door.
Her entire body turns to face me. Her lips are pushed out into a pissed off pout as she bites on the inside of her bottom lip.
I stand in front of her, arms folded and my eyes studying her own, but she stares back at me with serious intensity. She stands there wearing that same look that she did at the table when I said how I wasn't going to London. She knows me far too well. She knows that I'm exactly like her, meaning if I have made a decision, I will stick to it, and that's what annoyed her the most. She knew my mind was set and there was nothing she could do about it.
"Where are you going?" I question, now noticing the car keys in her hand.
"I need some air," she says coldly, not even looking at me when she speaks.
"You can't just leave. Everyone's in there." I point out.
"Well everyone will just have to cope without me, won't they?"
"Mom," I groan through gritted teeth. "Do you really think us fighting is going to make the situation any better?"
She was midway through leaving when suddenly she stops in her tracks, turning back around so this time her eyes do meet mine. Her eyebrows are creased into a deep frown.
"You're throwing away a career Samantha. You expect me to be happy about that? How did you think I would react? You get given this incredible opportunity and then decide that you're just going to give it away to somebody else. That's not how it works. Opportunities like this don't just get handed to you whenever you feel like it."
I sigh, "I know that."
"No, I don't think you do."
"Of course I do!" My voice was an annoyed groan. "It took you so long to get into the industry, from one label to another, not getting to make the music that was really you. I get that. I know I'm privileged to get offered what I have, and it is important to me, but it doesn't even come close to how important you are to me." I throw my hands over my face, trying my best to stop myself from crying. "I can't be on the other side of the ocean knowing that you're here fighting Ca-" I stop mid-sentence, realising that I hadn't actually said that disgusting, vile word out loud before. I stuttered for a few seconds, noticing my mom's face soften into an apologetic stare as she waited for me to say the word that sent chills right up both of our spines. "Knowing you're here...fighting Cancer."
"But-"
"No 'but' that you give me will change my mind. For the past eighteen years of my life you have been there for me, now it's my turn. I want to be there for you when this thing gets bad and you can't do it on your own. Dammit, why won't you just let me?"
Her response came out in a soft breath of air. "I know how important this is to you Sams."
"It is important. I love music just as you do. But, some things are just more important. If this was the other way around, and it was me who had the cancer-"
"Don't." She holds up her hand. The color fades straight out of the bottom of her face. I knew that she was imagining it. Me being the one that's sick. Me being the one that may have to leave the Earth at some point soon in such a cruel and unfair way. She was imagining it and it sickened her to the stomach, just like it did me, every single time I thought about her cells being destroyed and taken over by something that had an end goal of taking her life. It made me angry at the world. At God. At whatever greatness stood above us all deciding who would live and who would die.
"If it was me, would you go on tour?"
"What?" She quickly questions. "Of course I wouldn't! Is that even a serious question?"
"But touring is important to you?"
"So what? You're mor-" as her words slowly faded into silence, I could tell that she got it. She had clicked on.
"More important?" I finished her sentence.
"Yeah," she whispered.
"You see. I will work my ass off to get into the industry mom, but when you're better. Surely your faith in me enables you to see that one day, when the time's right, I'll still make it."
The smallest, most beautiful little smile appears on her face. Her gaze lifts from the ground to me and I can almost see the words forming a clear sentence in her mind.
She gets it.
"I do have faith in you, Sammie."
"Then please don't try and make me do something that I really don't want to do, because it will only result in this," I gesture between the pair of us, "us arguing. I don't want that. That's not what we need right now. We need to stand together, not fall apart."

[A/N]
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I know this is short, but I hate that I am keeping you all waiting for updates so here's something to keep you all going for the next EXPLOSIVE chapter. Be prepared.
Much love,
-ATasteOfPerfection