Life's Fear

Chapter Forty

Me: He said if we want to disagree with him – anyone – we will be kicked out of the house x

It took Jason a little time to reply unlike his typical quick replies – when he does reply, that is. This time it took him a few minutes. Was he being methodical with his reply? Was he making sure he knew what he was typing without generating an argument between us? I really hoped so, but when his reply came through, my stomach dropped.

Jason: I suppose we will have to be careful x

I don't know what I was expecting. Frowning, I knew I didn't want the characteristic bad boy flaw whereby they want you to do wrong and disobey your parents in order for them to be selfish and get what they want. I didn't want that. But did I want him to fight for us? Perhaps. But then a second text came through as I was trying to contemplate myself what to say, having been lying on my bed and just staring at my phone screen aimlessly for the past minute or so, feeling absolutely frazzled from what has been an emotionally-draining day.

Jason: I'm not letting you go, don't think that. But I don't want you disowned by your parents. We'll figure it out, I promise. Whatever it takes x

Me: I love you x

Jason: I love you too x

And now that I had Max back as my best friend, though we still had some way to go before that status will be set in stone – we talk just as much and behave the same, but it consistently feels as though there is a wall blocking something between us and halting us from becoming what we once were – I figured I'd text her. All she said was to be careful, too, and I was temporarily merciful that she hadn't just said to get rid of Jason and be single again. There was no way I would be going back to that, now knowing what I'd been missing by staying single since being a freshman.

Would it ever be the same though? I wondered to myself, hearing Mum amble upstairs to put some of the younger ones to bed. It was only when her footsteps began to become a crescendo that caught me off guard, and I put the phone down on the bed next to me in astonishment as she began opening the door, but then I wondered whether it would be Jesse checking up on me.

It was not. It was Mum.

"What are you doing in here?" I asked, sitting up on my bed before crossing over to my wardrobe to get my pyjamas. My tone was harsher than I intended, and Mum winced a little, I perceived out of my peripheral vision.

"I think we ought to talk a little, don't you?" she replied sweetly... her tone a little too sweetly if you asked me, especially after my harsher one. "Come and sit down next to me, Blair."

Her tone, no matter how sweet it was, held a hell of a lot of authority.

So with my pyjamas in hand, I traipsed back over to the bed, my eyes glued to the floor so I didn't have to stare into hers. And then the moment I sat down next to her, she patted my knee gently. "You know how young girls grow up with the expectation that they'll marry a rich man who's decent and has never done a bad thing in his life?"

"I guess," I reasoned, knowing it was true.

It was true, but that didn't mean I still had the same philosophy. I wanted a man who loved me for me and I loved equally back. As you grow older, you don't desire such high expectations like that unless perhaps you were a little shallow. As you grew older, you noticed the flaws in society and your own body, and from there on, you want a guy who will cherish those things about you. Like if you were a girl that laughed at just about everything, let's say, and a guy absolutely adored that about you, if he lost you, you'd want him thinking I really miss her laugh; she'd laugh at this over and over again, no matter how many times she'd see it.