Red Rain

Chapter 1

                                                                       Chapter 1

    You know that feeling you get in your stomach when you do something terribly wrong? Well I don’t, and I never thought I would. I can go into a store a come out a few minutes later with a new pair of head phones, not a dime spent, and I honestly don’t give a damn. I don’t know why it happens, I guess its just a sickness, but it feels like more then that. I smiled menacingly as I placed the hundred dollar head phones over my ears and walked through my front door. My mom was sitting on the couch, gripping a paper in her hands. By the look on her face, I knew it wasn’t good. I walked passed her, hoping she wouldn’t say anything.

    “Ari, would you take a look at this?” She whispered, obviously trying to keep calm.

    “What now Laurel?” I sighed. I always called my step-mom by her first name, she didn’t deserve to be called mom, or at least she didn’t seem to. I don’t know why I felt like that either.

    “Can you tell me what the meaning of this is?” She pointed to the paper. I rolled my eyes as I leaned over Laurel’s shoulder to skim the paper. My twilight blue eyes stretched wide as I realized what it was. The first line read ‘Your Daughter, Ariana Grace, has been spotted on school grounds with drugs.” Backing away, I came up with something to say.

    “Spencer had them, I didn’t know.” The excuse was stupid, but its the best I could come up with at the time.

    “Well, you obviously did, otherwise you wouldn’t know what this was all about.” She barked back.

    “I don’t.” Was my response. Laurel shook her head.

    “I should have expected this, the way you’ve been acting lately, I’m just so disappointed in you.” Her last few words cracked as her eyes began to cloud with salty tears. I rolled my eyes.

    “Theres nothing you can do about it, so why even try?” It sounded sophisticated enough.

    “You know what? You’re right.” My eyes widened in surprise. “I won’t try, I’ll just get to the consequence. You’re grounded-no I take that back, your under house arrest.” I couldn’t help to laugh.

    “And how are you going to do that? You can’t put me under house arrest, your not the fucking police!” The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them.” Laurel’s eyes widened.

    “Did you just...” She shook her head. “I’m your Mom, thats enough to control what you do and where you go, and I have decided that you’re not going anywhere.”

    “Your not my mom, and you never were, so don’t even try Laurel. You can’t control anything I do.” With that I turned around and pounded up the stairs. I gave one last look at Laurel, and muttered ‘bitch’ under my breath.

    “What?” Laurel’s voice cracked as she tried to threaten me.

    “None of your business bitch.” I shrugged like it was no big deal and she flew to her feet.

    “You do not call me things like that!” She scram at me.

    “I just did.”

    “Well, you shouldn’t have. You just made a big mistake. You better go straight to your room, and I will deal with you later.” She yelled, managing to keep her voice from cracking with tears while I laughed.

    Laurel is my stepmother. She married my dad, Austin, two years after my real mom, Jessica, died. My dad was never home, always out on a business trip or some other excuse to get away from his second wife. We’ve never talked about it, but I’m sure  Dad regrets remarrying, especially to Laurel. The only thing attractive about her is her beautiful long blonde hair, always curled perfectly at her shoulders, and her fake attitude that changed the minute we pulled up in the drive way of our new house. When she was dating my Dad, she had the perfect attitude, never worrying about anything and always managing her temper. That all changed immediately after the wedding. She worried about every flaw there could ever be, bossed everyone around, including Dad, and always had the worst temper.