Misplaced (Completed)

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

“Where the hell have you been?”

I hadn’t managed to get one foot in the door before she started on at me.

“Do you know how worried I was? How worried we all were. You just walk out, no explanation to where you were going or when you were going to come back. Not even bothering to pick up your bloody phone!”

I had a feeling that she would have continued, but my dad stepped in, resting a hand gently on her shoulder, pecking her on the check and softly leading her back inside the house. Over the top of her head, Daniel game me a look that could only possibly be conveying ‘good luck’ before he too turned and walked down the hall, leaving the door open for me.

With trepidation rooted deep into my stomach, I followed the rest of my family, pausing at the door to take off my boots. I then heavy a heavy sigh as I firmly shut the door and making my way over to the living room.

The three of them stood: my mum at the front, arms folded tightly across her chest, one foot turned out. Her angry pose. At least her foot wasn’t tapping yet.

Wait…there it is. I’m in heaps of trouble this time. Though you wouldn’t have guessed it from Daniel’s lazy position, arms loose at his sides, one hand occasionally going to rub his ear in a sign of nervousness. He knew I was in for it too. My dad, as usual had a look of overall calm. Only his eyes revealed his worry, but also his anger. Their usual warm brown hues had turned stony and cold. It takes a lot to get Dad angry, for example me going off all day by myself, with a phone that didn’t work, and none of my tablets on hand. Yeah, something like that would get him quite worked up.

“Well, speak up. Give me your best excuse!” Her voice was shrill and cut through me, allowing more fear to spill into my stomach. Like poison it was slowly starting to spread throughout my whole body.

I tried to think of the best way to put what happened today. “I got a job.” My voice was falsely cheery, and I happened to blurt out the part of the day that my mum would despise the most.

“A job?” It’s a rhetorical question, Rosie, don’t answer, whatever you do. “You’re telling me that you left in a huff, when I told you not to, completely ignored your phone, forgot to take a whole set of your immunosuppressant’s, just to ‘get a job’. A job that, as it is, we told you you couldn’t have yet. I don’t even want to know what this so called ‘job’ is, you’re not ready for that yet, and think of the stress! It’s not going to be good for you. I don’t care, you’re going to go back and tell them that you can’t work.”

She spoke fast, I almost had trouble keeping up, but unfortunately I heard every single word. However, that didn’t mean that I had to listen to every word; that I had to do as she said. No way in hell am I going to get rid of my job – I don’t even know if I have the job yet! She’s talking about the stress I’m going to get from the job; what about the stress I’m getting from her.

“Look, I’m sorry about storming out, okay? But I was angry, and I didn’t wanna say anything stupid or anything -”

“No, heaven forbid you say anything stupid, but do something stupid and that’s all just fine.”

“I wasn’t being stupid, I was trying to calm myself down!”

“Well if you wouldn’t insist on getting so worked up about every little thing I say…”

“No, you know what, you don’t say little things,” I said, using my fingers to put air quotes around the words, practically spitting them out in my bitterness. “You turn everything into a big problem and it’s -”