Shots - Frat!l.h.

Seventeen: Nora

"Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid." --Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Nora Keilee

Once I'd gotten back inside, nearly twenty minutes later, without Luke trailing behind me because he had insisted that I talk to my mother --alone--, I took out my bun and sat back down in front of my computer.

My mother laid there with a smile on her face, talking to my father. He sat right next to her, and the smile he sported made me want to cry. Ever since my mother had gotten sick, he'd always told me: Don't let a shitty situation make you a shitty person. The first time he had ever told me that was when she had first gotten sick and I had lashed out at one of my teachers for taking it too easy on me.

I was fifteen, and the teacher was a fragile woman who spoke as if she had an angel on her tongue. I hadn't been turning in my work, and she had told me to take as long as I needed. I asked her why I was getting such special treatment, and the look she had given me... I had seen it too many times.

So, I screamed at her until she sent me to the office, the other people in my class giving me pitying looks, and I had sat in the office until my father came to get me.

"Nora," He said, looking down at me, disappointment clear in his eyes.

"I don't want to hear it," I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest.

He moved so that he was squatting down in front of my chair, looking at me with his eyes wide open.

"Nora, listen to me," He grabbed my face in his hands. He had dad-hands; calloused and rough but comforting at the same time. "Don't let a shitty situation make you into a shitty person. Just because what we're going through is tough doesn't mean that you can take it out onto other people, okay?"

Since then, whenever one of us was being sour, we'd say that to each other. He said it to me more than I said it to him, because my father was a wonderful man.

"Sorry," I apologized, greeting the both of them. "Where were we?"

"Who was at the door?" My mother said. Her voice was always strong, even with the cancer running through her veins. She'd been sick for three years, and the only difference I had seen in her was her physical state. She was the same mentally, and I was grateful.

"It was Luke," I answered, watching as a slow smile spread across her face. The only things she'd known about him were the good things. I never bothered to tell her about our fights.

"I like him," She answered.

"I know you do," I rolled my eyes playfully at her.

"Can we stop talking about my baby's boyfriend?" My dad pouted, and I felt my cheeks heat up.

"He's not my boyfriend," I squeaked. "We're just... friends."

"But he will be, right?" My mother poked, grinning widely at me.

"I gotta get ready for class," I said, noticing the time. I had a literature class in about twenty minutes, and it took nearly ten minutes to get to the building the class was in.

"Okay, bella, I'll talk to you tomorrow," My mother said. My father said something along the same lines.

"Te amo, padre. Te amo, madre." I smiled at the two of them.

I shut my laptop, not bothering to actually turn it off. It was an old thing that I had gotten my sophomore year of highschool that barely worked anymore and took ages to turn back on.