Swayed (A Before You Exit Fanfiction)

Chapter Eight - Plans

Copyright © 2014 BYEconnort – All Rights Reserved

To say I was bored would be an awful understatement. I’ve been holed up in my bedroom for about five days, if I haven’t lost track of time in my dull state. I couldn’t blame the weather for my lack of enthusiasm to actually live my life. It’s just this phase of mine where I don’t go out for days. I rarely make an appearance to my mom – heck, I don’t even go downstairs if it’s not to eat a meal. I’ve been practicing this routine where I wake up at noon, eat some food, shower briefly, and file back into my room to either watch movies, read books, or spend an unhealthy amount of time on tumblr where I laugh at the funny posts, because, let’s face it, it’s summer, I have no friends, and this is all there is to my life right now.

In the five days of my confinement, I’ve already arranged all my clothes according to color. And now I’m currently sprawled on the floor with all the CDs, tapes, and records I own, trying to arrange each kind into an alphabetical order. What a lunatic, you must be thinking.I know, I know. But it’s something to preoccupy myself with. I’m in no position to deny myself little activities to pass the time. It was something to do, right?

So be it if I’m slowly transforming into this really lame hermit with absolutely no life whatsoever.

My mom hasn’t noticed this lock-yourself-up-in-your-bedroom-and-do-nothing-productive-all-day streak of mine, or maybe she has but chooses to keep quiet about it. Either way, she’s been really busy with work lately because of her shift from one branch of the company to another. She’s gone most of the day and the only time I see her is when we eat dinner. Today is different, though. It’s Sunday, or at least I think it is, and she doesn’t have work today, which is a little weird because she usually works on Sundays too, being the workaholic my mom is. 

I can hear the banging of pans downstairs, which only means she’s up to no good in the kitchen again. I hope it’s not some failed experiment that she’ll no doubt be forcing me to eat later.

It takes a while to put into order all my CDs, but when I finally finished, I crank up the air conditioning and haul my sorry ass to bed and bundle up for a nap.

I’m not sure how long I was into the nap, but I awoke to the feeling of being nudged on the shoulder.

It was my mother. I groan into my comforter to let her know I was awake now. 

“Get up,” my mom says brightly as she shakes me awake more insistently. “I have news for you.”

“What is it?” I ask without opening my eyes. I secure my blanket around me and turn away from her in hopes of getting comfy again. She stops her nudging and takes a seat at the foot of my bed. 

“You see, Joan was here earlier. She was helping me cook some dishes,” she explains. “And we were talking – “

“Not about me, I hope,” I interrupt tartly. Her nervous laughter alerts me and I sit up to face her.

“Kind of,” she admits sheepishly.

“Thanks, Mom,” I deadpan.

“Anyway, she had a really great suggestion to help stop this,” she gestures wildly to my whole room. “Insanity.”

“Well, I’m pretty content with this ‘insanity’,” I say, putting air quotes with my fingers on the word insanity. She only shakes her head in response.

 “Just hear me out, honey. Joan says you’re welcome to come with her sons to the remaining shows on their current tour.”

 “No thanks.”

 “What? You didn’t even consider it.”

“Mom, I don’t want to go,” I say firmly. Besides, I don’t even think I’m really welcome. I don’t want to go if it will only be awkward for me. The McDonoughs and I aren’t totally back to the level of friends. Well, I’m not so sure, to be frank. I don’t want to mess up things with them further like how I’ve managed to do everytime we meet, especially with Connor.