The Free (Unedited)

The Same Old

A week had passed since the incident with Amber, and I was relieved that fling was short lived. For one thing, Amber is one of my only friends and for another Lukas would hurt her in the end. Anyway, I wasn't going to deal with that today.

Today was saturday, a day to myself. Lukas was out God knows where and Laura was out with Toby. They had been dating a week; I'm actually surprised they made it this long.

It had been only a few hours since I had finally finished all the things I had to do. I was just finishing one of my favorite movies, something I never got to watch, when I got a call on my phone.

"Hey love!!" came a voice on the other end of the line, sounding way too cheery for that person to be. Well, that's actually a lie. She was always cheery.

"Hey mom." I sighed and got up to make me some streaming cocoa. I was going to need it.

"Soooo, how is my favorite child?" came the sickly sweet voice across the line.

"I could be better," I admitted, shrugging even though she couldn't see me.

"So, I have a really important question for you," my mom started before launching into her very long-winded story before finally getting to the question.

"Well, you know how I've been in New York this whole time? Well, it just so happens that I will be getting my own tv show! I'm so excited honey you don't even know!"

I did know.

"Well this show is going to be shot in Washington, and maybe even all around the world, I don't know yet we're working out all the specifics. Anyway, so it's like this feel good slice of life story about a mom, me, being alone raising some kids, you know, the usual, but this time the kids I'm raising all have special needs! This is totally a new opportunity to get the media to be more aware of mental health and even disabilities in general, and this has so many dynamics in it. I helped make it myself, you know."

With that, my cocoa was done and I was done with my mom's rambling.

"Hey mom," I started shutting down her conversation with basically herself, "can you please cut to the chase? I have a lot to do today."

"Is one of them watching that dumb movie?" She asked snootily.

I sighed. "No mom."

"Whatever," she started bitterly, "I just wanted to talk to my dear daughter, the doll of the family, my sweet sweet child, but I see you have other plans."

I knew she wasn't really bitter. It was just an act to make me feel guilty about being such a horrible daughter. Oh well. I've ridden this bull to many times to feel guilty about what my mom has to say to me.

"Just tell me what you want mom," I said tiredly. She has already worn me out and it's only been like 10 minutes.

"Wow, the treatment I get from my daughter," she spat. I could feel her glare from across the phone.

"Mama, you know I love you, it's just been a really hard week for me," I said, soothing her temper.

"Well, in that case, I'll tell you what I want to happen in the next few days," she started warmly. As her favorite child, when I upset her, all I had to do was come up with a lame excuse to tell her and she would instantly become my best friend again.

"Well, I'm coming over there to spend some time with my lovely family, and I was hoping we could have a day out, you know?"

This I had to take. This is what I have to do to stay in the good graces of my mom. It's not that I didn't want to go, but it was more that I didn't have a choice. I did love my mom though, so of course I would give her what she wanted.