Thorns On My Rose: A Story of the Daughter of Robert Downey Jr. (EDITING)

Chapter 8 - Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

"What are you doing?" Rob says once he reaches my room. I ignore him and continue to drag my humongous suitcase out of my closet. Well his closet. Technically. it's his house.

I had gotten here before him, minutes before, considering I was riding a horse and Robert had driven to the beach. I had put Spirit back in his stall thingy and then kissed his nose before leaving. I planned on never seeing him again. I had contemplated stealing him but it just... it would be too big of a feat and it was really unnecessary. And l mean... just stupid. I mean who in the hell wakes up and leaves their step father, only to go outside and steal his beautiful mustang? I am not that heartless.

I went back to my closet and dragged the laden hangers onto my bed, grunting with the effort. Rob stood in the doorway, looking wary, with Exton on his hip. Exton was gurgling angrily, probably catching on to what was happening.

"Al-Alana what are you doing?" I rolled my eyes, heading for my drawers.

"Are you really just that stupid to where you can't put two and two together?" I asked. "I mean, come ooonnnn. It's four."

He sighed. "Alana. Please. Can we just talk? I'm trying to fix this."

I grabbed an entire drawer and then proceed to shake the contents out and into my bag. I placed it back in the dresser before grabbing another.

"First off, we are talking. This whole word thing we got going on, back and forth, is a conversation aka talking." I pushed some of my hair out of the way, spreading the clothes all along the bottom of the suitcase. Robert had bought me so many clothes since I'd gotten here. And I only had this huge bag and my back pack I brought from Texas.

"You know what I'm fricking talking about, Rose." He said, frustrated. He put down Exton who was beginning to fall asleep placing him on my couch. I made a sound of annoyance.

I pointed at my half-brother. "Oi! If he pukes on that couch, I'm going to do something extremely violent." I swore. Robert walked over to my bed, watching me. I could tell he was starting to get upset.

"Why do you care? YOU'RE leaving!"

"Okay, yeah, but nobody wants to see a fucking puke stain on that beautiful piece of furniture." I shook my head.

Robert closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, before opening them again. "Why are you doing this?" I didn't answer.

He followed me to the closet where I proceeded to drag out more clothing. "You can't just leave! I'm responsible for you. I take care of you. Me! You can't just go."

"Right!" I shouted, sarcastically. "'And there's no chance anyone can steal this, either.'" I said quoting Nicolas Cage in National Treasure. Robert blinked.

"Ya know. I just realized how tired I am of being fricking bossed around. Adults are nothing but grown up bullies, who think that because someone is substantially younger than them, they have the irrevocable right to be asses. FALSE!"

Robert sighed. "This is the first time I've ever even done this to you. This is the first time I've ever yelled at you! And I think I have a good reason." I dropped my clothes, crossing my arms.

"You think that I deserve to be yelled at because of how sucky your relationship with your wife is?"

His jaw tightened. "You don't know anything, Alana. It's way more complicated than that."

"Oh, fucking cry me a river. I don't know what this shit is. I don't know or understand why you guys have such deep rooted issues that she feels the need to go find her self-worth in some black man. I don't care either. I DO care that you never have me a heads up, and don't look at me like that because you were probably never gonna say anything. I DO care that I just stood up for you and you have never done that for me--"