Temptations

Chapter Seventeen* - Medical Emergency

Imagine meeting your boyfriend's parents for the first time. Just imagine. Awkward. Scary. Nerve-wrecking as hell, having the two strangers practically dissect you to make sure you're good enough for their son.

Just the fact that you've never met the people before makes it more awkward. Basically, things are very awkward.

So, you walk through the door and smile at them. Your girlfriend/boyfriend tries comforting you. They tell you that you'll be fine and that their parents will love you. You put on a brave face and decide to take on the challenge. You walk into the house, ignoring the threshold. You trip over and land on your face and when you get up, you're even more embarrassed, waiting for the ground to open up and take you in.

This makes you feel even more awkward.

Unfortunately, I'd give anything for that kind of awkward first meeting. My first meeting with Ian's dad was, undoubtedly, unlike any other. I genuinely thought he was going to kill me and enjoy every second of it. I guess I was hoping for something different, more convenient with Ian's mother.

Boy was I wrong.

Before you start jumping to conclusions, Joanna Cavanaugh did not threaten to kill me as her husband, Dominic, had. In fact, she was so unlike her husband. She was almost the polar opposite. But the fact that she broke into a classroom, Mr. Heimlich's classroom, made her seem a bit...impulsive. I recalled the moment when she'd said the five scariest words of the day.

"Your brother's had an accident." Joanna told Callie almost as soon as she had spotted her daughter. Callie got up, looking at her mother, confused.

"What do you mean?" She asked Joanna. The woman shook her head, marching over to her daughter. Joanna came over and stood between me and Callie.

"Don't ask so many questions. We need to get to the hospital." Callie nodded, slowly packing her things while Joanna tried to hurry her daughter by handing her stuff as she put it into her bag while stuffing some things herself.

In the meantime, the rest of the class watched this charade, as you may call it, with much amusement. Finally, Mr. Heimlich snapped out of whatever bubble he was in and marched over to Mrs. Cavanaugh. "Excuse me, Miss. This is my classroom. Do you have a notice to pull Callista out of class?" Mrs. Cavanaugh looked at Mr. Heimlich and glared at him.

"I can pull my daughter out if I want to. She's my daughter. The school doesn't have the authority to stop me from doing so. The school didn't give birth to her." She told him. Then, Joanna looked at Callie again. "Hurry up, would you?"

All the time, I was wondering...which brother?

Was it my Ian? I'd only seen him a little while ago, so it had to be Cole, right? Not that I wanted something bad to happen to him, either. Unable to take the mental torture any longer, I decided to voice my concerns. "Um, who are you talking about?" I asked, unsure of how to phrase it. I wasn't going to ask her who was dying. Imagine how that would have sounded. 'Uh miss? Is Cole dying or is Ian?'

Yeah, that wouldn't have gone too well.

Joanna looked at me, curiously. She glanced at Callie and back at me before anyone could give an explanation. "Who are you?"  She asked me, very bluntly.

"Mom." Callie hissed, attracting her mother's attention. "That's Eira." She explained, saying my name as if it had a second meaning.

Mrs. Cavanaugh looked at me again. I squirmed under her critical gaze. "You're Eira?" She asked, incredulously. I stared at her before giving a slight nod, answering her question. "I'm taking her with me, too." She declared. Mr. Heimlich looked at the woman, incredulously, as if he couldn't believe this was happening—which he probably couldn't. Joanna looked back at me, again.  "Don't just stare at me." Joanna said, snapping me out of my thoughts. "You need to start packing, too. Hurry up."