Recovery | On Hiatus

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

      WHEN I WOKE up the next morning, chaos had ensued.

The start of said chaos revolved around the fact that I didn't wake up until noon, and only got worse when I noticed the multiple missed calls from my mother.

On the bright side, it was Saturday morning, so at least I didn't miss any classes.

Sighing heavily, I picked up the phone to check many, many voicemails right as my phone rang again. I answered, but kept the phone away from my face some as I heard my mother yelling about me needing to answer my phone calls when they're from her. As her ranting slowed down to a calm but heavy breathing, I brought the phone to my ear. "I love you." It came out as more of a question than a statement.

She huffed out a breath, reluctantly saying, "I love you, too."

"You okay?" I asked. She had a tendency to let her temper build up and explode. Darrin and I learned at an early age to just let her finish and wait for her to calm down before speaking, unless we wanted her to go on another rant.

"You need to come home." Well, someone was getting straight to the point.

"Why?" I asked quickly, anxiety tightening my chest in panic. Maybe I could talk her out of it.

"I know you're sleeping with Hayden, Scarlet."

If I'd been drinking something right about now, it would have been spit onto the floor. Sleeping with Hayden? Where he hell did she get that idea?

And then it hit me. Darrin.

I fought the growl that bubbled in my throat and instead took a deep breath. "Mom, I am not sleeping with Hayden. We're barely even friends at the moment."

"'Barely friends' don't stay the night at each other's houses for days on end." She was right, I knew, but there was more to it than just being 'barely friends'. I couldn't tell her why I was here, because that would mean I'd have to tell her about Darrin, and that wasn't an option.

Ignoring her comment, I asked, "Where did you even get the idea that I was sleeping with Hayden?"

"Your brother," she answered exactly how I'd expected her too. Figures. "He told me you confided it to him and he thought I was something I should know."

Does nobody in my family know the meaning of the word 'confide'? Because it's pretty close to 'confidential' if you ask me, even if the subject isn't true in the slightest.

"Mom, I'm not sleeping with Hayden," I repeated.

"I want you home."

My blood froze as I realized nothing I said was going to help. "What?"

"Now, Scarlet," she demanded. "I want you home now."

"Why?" I asked, hoping to stall or plead or whatever I could do to stay here and not go back to that hell with Darrin.