The Flower Children

Chapter Nine

The day of which Maia and Micah were meant to leave had finally arrived. The pair wordlessly packed their suitcases and themselves into their mother's car at about 5am, much to Maia's dismay which was attributed to the fact that she hadn't got much sleep.

When she entered the silent house from her goodbye party, it had been 12:40 am. Additionally, she hadn't been able to fall asleep immediately because she kept thinking about the situation with Ty and how she was going to break the news to Jaimie. In fact, she spent some time attempting to draft a text message and wondering whether Hayley had beat her to the punch already.

Eventually she had zoned out, only to be woken up what felt like minutes later by her mom. Maia had planned to sleep throughout their trip to Hiddenfields which was a good 10 hour drive away, however, her mom had other plans.

"I didn't hear you come in last night. What time did you get home?"

Maia sighed and rubbed her eyes tiredly.

"I don't know mom. Around 12ish, I guess?"

Theresa took her eyes off the road for a few moments to glance at her daughter before training them back to the stretch ahead of them.

"You told me you'd be there for a couple of hours. What were doing for so long that kept you at your friend's house until 12?"

Maia rolled her eyes. Of course her mom would choose now to have an argument. When she was suffering from lack of sleep, hunger and a severe case of hatred for early mornings.

"We were just hanging out and listening to music. In my case, I was waiting for you to answer my message and you never did."

"Don't you dare try turn this around on me," Theresa warned, her voice rising a couple of octaves before she added, "How did you get home?"

"A friend of mine drove me. Can we please do this later? I'm so tired," Maia sighed exasperatedly.

"No. No we will not do this later. I can't believe you were so irresponsible, you left Micah alone. Do you know when I got home, he was in an utter state! Drawing all these strange symbols and shouting at the top his voice, the neighbors thought he was being bloody murdered or something."

Maia shot up in her seat and suddenly, she wasn't feeling so sleepy anymore as terror ran through her body. She turned around in her seat to face her brother who was watching the exchange between his mother and sister.

"Micah, I told you to call me. You promised that you would call me," Maia choked, her eyes watering as she thought about how something really terrible could've happened to Micah while she was off releasing her inhibitions.

Micah had the grace to look a bit sheepish when he weakly shrugged his shoulders and replied with, "It wasn't as big of a deal as mom is making it out to be."

"Isn't a big deal? Micah you were foaming at the mouth! You were practically having a seizure and there was no one there to take care of you! The person who was supposed to be there, to keep an eye on you wasn't there! And where was she? Off doing lord knows what with lord knows who! This is her fault!"

Maia's lower lip began to tremble and her eyes stung with unshed tears as she turned around in her seat and lowered her head in shame. Her mom was still going off on her tangent but all Maia could think about were the words "This is her fault." Her mom was right. It was her fault. She had one task, to protect and be there for her brother. She had failed. She failed Micah.

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No one spoke for the entirety of the trip to Hiddenfields, with the exception of a few terse questions regarding bathroom and quick food breaks. Of course, there was also the additional petty slight with regards to responsibility from Theresa which Maia decided to pointedly ignore.