Boy Charming

Chapter Five: I Sent Him My Love Story!

My mom hates not being able to ground me. It works so well for my sisters. They think its punishment to not be able to go out with friends. For me I’m usually in my room anyway, and if my mom takes Viros away I just sit down with a pen and paper and write. I even enjoy doing homework sometimes!

If my mom took everything out of my room, I’d sit at my chair by the window (or sit on the floor if she took my chair away too) and watch the traffic and people down below.

And I’d daydream.

No one can take away my daydreams.

On this particular Valentine’s evening my mom was REALLY hating the fact that she couldn’t ground me and I could hear her talking to my sisters about me ‘lying’ that I was sick at the dance.

Like I said, I did not lie about being sick! Rodney assumed I was sick. Everybody did. And it's no big deal right? This is not something normal girls get grounded over. Maybe I just wanted to leave the dance early, even if I ‘wasn’t’ sick. What's wrong with that?

But something else is bothering my mom. She doesn’t know it yet. She thinks it’s my ‘behaviour’, but when she gets emotional over something small like this it always means she’s upset about something else. Usually it’s something about herself, anything from a frustrating client at work to feeling inadequate as a mom. I really don’t know but whatever it is, I’m getting the brunt of it.

So after my mom forced me off the computer I went to the kitchen. Everyone was looking unhappy. Now I could tell they had decided on a punishment for me, but before anyone could say anything I started to cry. Not sobbing or anything, but for some reason I couldn’t take a breath and my eyes got all hot.

I never cry so this was a surprise to everyone, especially to me. I think it is because the weather is so cold all the time like winter will never END and I was just being emotional… (okay fine, it was because DC hadn’t contacted me all day).

So since everyone was kind of surprised and not sure what to do I went into the bathroom and locked the door. I sat down on the toilet lid and imagined DC, just the way I want him to be, in my room with me. He’d hold me in his arms until I relaxed, because that’s all I really want, someone close, that can be my best friend, who understands me. And DC wouldn’t have to say anything, we'd just be together, in the same room, even if we were both doing something different. I would be enough to know that he is there.

Then a knock on the door interrupted my thoughts.

“Sweetheart?” It was my mom. She’d changed her tone.

“I’m fine.” I said. I felt like I had control again, but I was surprised at how lonely I felt all of a sudden, like depressed. It came like a wave and then passed, but now I was seeing something I never realized was there; an underlying current of loneliness.

Has it always been there? But I didn’t have time to reflect on it because my mom was all worried. I got up and open the door for her. My sisters were standing there too, wide eyed. They were probably excited to see some drama in my boring life.

I was not going to tell them that I was sad because my only real friend, who is not really ‘here’, hadn’t contacted me in so many hours. I already knew what their response would be so why bother? They would tell me that I need real friends.

It was my fault for getting emotional in front of my family so I humoured them by letting them sit me down in the living room and give me advice, talk about their concerns, etc. I didn’t say much and just agreed with everything they said. Yes I should get out more, not close myself off so much, open up to other people, not be so guarded.