Friday the 14th

Part 5: Mi Casa

Red dropped me off outside and I hurried inside, past the strange car in the driveway, barely saying goodbye. I had been preoccupied the entire way home with the thought of Mom grounding me till graduation (from college, no doubt) and was hardly aware of the fact that Red was watching me leave. Before now, I had essentially been a bad deed virgin--I wasn't a Little Miss Perfect, but I wasn't the type to break into people's houses and steal diaries, however much I hated them.

I blindly opened the door and threw myself inside, just in time to see my mom's tank top strap fall off her shoulder as she passionately made out with some guy. Really mature. And I'M the one in trouble?

I was debating whether I should clear my throat loudly or just run to my room before this scene escalated when Mom seemed to sense my presence and broke away from her new man. Too late to run now. I braced myself for the storm as Mom awkwardly adjusted spaghetti straps and her new man--whom I'm sure I'd seen before, or at least looked like someone I knew--attempted to fade into the wallpaper.

"Mia Melina, what were you doing out so late?" Mom finally snapped.

"I don't know, Mom, what were you doing out so late?" I looked pointedly at the guy.

The logical part of my brain was squirming in shame, but the rest was blatantly rude and fed up with this. Something about breaking into a house with Red was making me reckless.

"Mia. Apologize to Mateo at once."

I glanced at the dude, Mateo. "I didn't say anything against Mateo, Mom. This is all you."

I marched upstairs, since I didn't want to be in a room with her a minute longer and she was probably already going to ground me for the rest of my life already. What was the point in hanging around?

I lay on my bed, seething in silent anger. I couldn't think about anything, right now, except how immature Mom really was. She didn't even try to act like an adult about stuff like this. Nope, instead she dates a guy who breaks her heart because he doesn't want to date a serial dater, then throws herself at the next living thing to get over her breakup.

For the first time in years, I missed Dad. I couldn't hate him anymore when the last thing I remember was him giving me my favorite giraffe stuffed animal with a sweet smile while Mom watched some romantic sitcom while texting and letting her nails dry. He left us when I was four, but I needed him right now. I needed a parent.

But I didn't have a parent. So I called the next best thing: my brother Josh.

"Mia, it's nearly three in the morning on the East Coast, you'd better have a really good reason for distracting me from my homework," Josh groaned sleepily.

I didn't even have time to feel sympathetic for Josh, and the fact that he was still doing his college kid homework at three in the morning for him. "Mom has another guy and she was making out with him WHILE SHE HAD NO IDEA WHERE I WAS, Joshua Clark Rose, do you know how much it sucks to have a mother who makes out with guys in the living room after you've been gone for hours?"

"Mia, calm down." Josh's voice was steady and I could imagine him lying on his bed in his dorm at the campus, surrounded by his complicated psychology homework. "What happened tonight? Er, yesterday night? This morning?"

"It's midnight here."

"So what happened?"

I took a deep breath, then let it out. Josh wouldn't judge me. Josh was a great therapist, he wouldn't judge. So I told him. I gave him every detail, from meeting Red to breaking in to an enemy's house. It felt good to just talk to someone about everything that had been happening to me, because even my friends wouldn't really listen--Sylvie would be judging me for breaking into a house with a stranger and Quinn would be freaking out over me driving around at night with a hot guy.