In Check

chapter twenty

The way back to the camp site was awfully quite, Justin was walking beside me looking down at the ground in deep thought and furrowed eyebrows.

“What you thinking about?” I asked him as I side stepped a huge rock. His gaze snapped up to meet mine and cleared his throat before he spoke.

“Just hope I make a good impression on your parents.” He nervously laughed and dug his hands into his jean pocket. I playfully smirked at him.

“I thought you said you were ready?”

“I am, I can be nervous at the same time.” He laughed and swung his arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer. We finally arrived at the camp site, I could already see my parents quietly bickering on the table at the very back. Justin’s parents don’t seem to have moved since we left them a while ago. My heart was beating fast against my chest as we walked closer and closer. I put my hand on Justin’s chest, halting his movements. He looked down at me with a confused gaze.

“Let me just go and talk to them first, I’ll wave you over.” I smiled and walked off to where they were sitting, not giving him a chance to reply. My hands seemed to shake more and more as I walked closer to them. My dad’s eyes snapped up from the ground as the leaf I stepped on let out a loud “crunch” from underneath my shoe.

“Where did you run off to? Andrew came back before you did.” He took a bite from his cracker and pointed towards the drinktable where Andrew and Rebecca were laughing and visually seemed to be getting along, I rolled my eyes.

I’ll talk to him about her later.

I took a deep breath and tried to get this out as casually as possible. “I was with Justin.” I smiled. My mother smiled back where as my father remained silent.

“Who’s Justin?” My mother asked and placed her plastic cup on the table behind her.

“A guy I’ve kind of been seeing here.” I breathed out and looked at my dad who was staring back at me intensely, still not saying a word. My mother gasped in surprise, but she almost looked happy.

“Sweetie that’s great! Where is he? I’d love to meet the boy.” She beamed and placed a hand on my dad’s knee, which only made him push it away roughly. My heart clenched.

“You met a boy? Here?” he spat out, I could see the veins in his hands popping out, and it was probably taking everything in him to not flip over every single table around us.

“Calm down, don’t make this a bad thing for her.” My mother tried to calm him from next to him. I felt my hands shake from my sides, not out of fear but out of rage.

“It’s not a big deal if he’s from here dad.” I spoke through gritted teeth, im sick of how he’s been treating me. I know im the child but the respect thing is supposed to work both ways. My dad looked at me perplexed, like I had just spoken French to him.

“Not a big deal? You’re supposed to be getting better not be dating someone that could potentially bring all that behavior back!” His voice began to rise, causing some people’s attention to snap over to us. I let out a groan; he cannot do this right now. I looked back over to Justin who was looking over at me and slowly began to walk over.

Please, not now Justin.

 “Break it off; he won’t be good for you.” He spoke sternly and slowly began to get up from his seat. My mother stood up with him, silently begging him to not make a scene.

I scoffed in disbelief. “I won’t be doing that.”

“The hell you won’t.”

“Dad, you can’t just-“