whatever ;; tradley

The Part Where The Bad News Comes In

I got home that day, the way I did any day, in my mom's old beat-up SUV she let me drive ever since she got her new car. I hardly fit in it, seeing as I'm six feet tall. I hate my car, almost as much as I hate high school (which you already know is a lot.) The only good thing about it is I no longer have to rely on my mom to drive me around. Being a teenager sucks, but at least I have a little bit of freedom now that I'm old enough to.

I picked up my little sister from her primary school, like I always do. I used to ask her how her day was, but she's decided she's too cool to talk to me now. Milly is little, but she's smart enough to learn how to climb the social ladder. Too bad I didn't learn that at a young age.

Most days when I get home, I either fall asleep in my room or watch old movies, since my mother refuses to update our DVD collection (with the exception of Avatar - but I still had to beg her to buy it).  But today, she and my father stopped me before I could disappear to my room.

"Tristan, honey. We need to talk to you." She looked kind of weird, and sad, and she never called me honey except when something bad was happening.

"Did Grandma die?" I blurted out, running my hands through my hair.

"No. No, she didn't," She said softly, and reached up to rub my shoulder softly, which felt kind of awkward, since I was three heads taller than her.

"Um-" I tried to move away subtlety,  "Then ... What's the matter?"

My mother sighed and looked up towards my father. I remember her face looking kind of hopeful and sad at the same time. Or maybe just stressed. I wouldn't know. I'm terrible at reading faces.

"Your mother got some bad news today. From a friend." My father was still stoic, and at this point I was sweating and about to piss myself. It was the first time I'd seen them act this way before.

"Well - what the hell is it?"

At this point my mother smacked my arm and began lecturing me, telling me "you need to have some sympathy" and "can't you tell this is serious?". I didn't do much other than sigh and repeat "sorry, sorry, sorry," underneath my breath until she stopped being angry and got that weird look in her eyes again. Between you and me, I prefer her angry at me rather than being that weird emotion I couldn't read.

"Tristan, do you know my friend Anne-Marie?"

Anne-Marie was a friend of my mother's, and had been over our house a few times, but I honestly thought that they were more like acquaintances. I'd never said so much as 'hello' to her, mostly because I forgot her last name and I wasn't sure if she was cool with some greasy eighteen-year-old calling her by her first name. I knew plenty more of my mother's friends who were over more often and were way closer. So I had no clue why all of a sudden she was making my mother act strange and sad.

"Yeah," I looked at my beat-up shoes. "Yeah, a little. What happened with her?"

My mum sighed again and walked closer to me, and then gestured for me to sit down in a chair. I did, and she sat down next to, scooting closer. I felt really claustrophobic.

"Tristan," She took both of my hands in hers and looked at me straight in the eyes. "I have some really, really, sad news about her family. I don't want this to upset you as much as it upset me. Okay?"