Lie Until You Laugh

19- Making Plans

Getting up at six every morning isn’t really my cup of tea. Waking up at five in the morning is basically as hard as climbing Mt. Everest with one leg and a broken arm.

However, somehow, I find the strength inside of me to get up, showered, and dressed at five in the morning. I’m dressed in slightly baggy black work out pants, a blue sports bra, and a gray jacket with my newer gym shoes with my hair pulled into a pony tail.

Stella’s alarm clock is just starting to go off as I leave the room and start towards the studio. Outside, it’s darker than it usually is because I’m up an hour earlier than I usually am. The air is still damp with morning dew and it’s almost silent outside. Everybody is probably either still sleeping or just waking up, so there’s really nobody outside at all.

I grumble in tired irritation as I open the front door to the unlocked studio and walk in. Penn isn’t in there so I assume that he’s behind the mystery door. I want to procrastinate speaking to him for as long as possible, so I just tip toe into the back of the room so that he hopefully doesn’t hear me come in, and I sit down with my duffle bag to my right.

I pull out my phone as I lean my head against the wall and check for any missed calls even though I know that there are obviously none because my ringer is still turned up all the way. There is a text though, from my mom’s phone.

Where are you?

It’s not actually from my mom though, I can tell because at the end of her texts, she always says something like “I love you”. This means that he has her phone. That means that if something goes really wrong, she won’t be able to call me or anything. I close my eyes tightly and look up with the back of my head leaning against the cinderblock wall.

I made a mistake coming here. I shouldn’t have left them alone with him. I shouldn’t have abandoned them when I was all they had for protection against him. I made a huge mistake. How could I do that to them?

I remind myself that Jo still has her phone (hopefully) so if something really does go wrong and they need me to come back, she’ll call me from that phone. I remind myself that when I was at home, I didn’t protect them at all. I wanted to- I tried my best to- but it never did any good. If he went after my mom, I’d try to protect her, but he’d just hit me too and then lock me in a closet or something so that he could continue beating her up. I was useless at home even if I don’t want to believe it.

I didn’t make a mistake coming here. I didn’t. I am doing the right thing. I’m right. I’m going to save them both from his threat. I’m going to save them. I had to leave. I had to. I’m way too young for this. I’m just too young.

I don’t reply to the message, I just throw my phone into my duffle rather aggressively and then I put my face in my hands to extricate myself from the outside world and then I start running my fingers through my hair.

“Good morning,” Penn greets dryly as he enters the room from behind the mystery door. “Why do you look like your puppy just got shot?”

“I don’t have a puppy,” I tell him, standing up from the floor to start whatever torture he has planned for the next hour before practice actually starts.

“It was a simile,” He says with a sigh. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s whatever,” I mutter. “What are we going to do?”

“We aren’t going to do anything,” Penn tells me. “You are going get some of your everlasting anger out.”

“I’m not angry,” I deny with a shake of my head.