The promise. [Short Chapters]

Chapter Fifteen.

You know when you have those moments when the only thing running through your mind is "what the actual fuck"? Well, um, yeah.

If you've no idea what I'm on about, I must apologize that you've lost your Alzheimer's meds. I'd help you find them but I do happen to be in the middle of a narrative. That, and I don't have a clue what Alzheimer's meds look like. And since neither of us are going to do a very good job of finding those meds, I'll just fill you in: Party. Family. Shitty. Whiskey spilled on my (ugly) dress. Oh, and my crazy deadbeat parents showed up at the door and I was stood there, staring at them with my mouth open like a goldfish.

It was as if time was standing still. I was frozen on the spot, as were they, and we just looked at each other. They appeared considerably more joyful than I did, but it wasn't the kind of joy you'd expect out of two people seeing their only child for the first time in seven years. Their smiles were more like the overzealous grins you'd expect out of people faced with the irritating task of greeting a small child.

I could feel my hands trembling at my sides, but other than that, the rest of my body was paralyzed. I stared in shock, waiting for something, anything to wake me up from this awful dream. Unfortunately, nothing did, and as my "father" started to speak, I was reminded that this was, in fact, real life, and time seemed to resume once more.

"Lolita, you've grown up so much!" His voice was irritating, one of those try-hard hippie douche voices, but a thousand times worse with his distinct accent. Someone really needed to tell him that the hippie voice only works for Americans, but I had other plans for what I'd say to him.

"Well, of course I did, it's only been seven fucking years since you've bothered to visit," I snapped bitterly through gritted teeth. My limp, trembling hands were now balled up into fists at my sides, and I could feel the anger burning through every vein, every pore of my skin. "Didn't occur to you once that the daughter you abandoned to live with your nightmarish in-laws might have wanted her mum and dad around?"

My mum seemed to be taken aback by my hostility. She placed a hand to her chest in attention-seeking shock and let her jaw hang open slightly, just for a moment, until she turned back into super-optimist-tree-hugging-flower-child mode. "My flower, Mother Earth needed us. When the earth calls to you, you've got to answer."

I could hear Matt snicker to my side, but I couldn't bring myself to focus on the fact that my sorry excuse for a mother had truly just out-crazied herself because my mind was on the warpath. I actually shuddered with how pissed off I was.

"Mother Earth needed you? And I didn't when I was chronically ill as a baby? What about when I was bullied as a child? Or when I got my first period, Chrissakes, you know I had to get the talk from the guidance counselor because Gran was too old to remember anything about it?" I was fuming, shouting at this point, but I didn't care. "You've no excuse for being absentee pieces of shit. It would be one thing if you'd have just fucked out of my life completely when you gave me up, but teasing me by coming back once in a blue moon, making me think that maybe you'll finally decide to re-enter my life? That's just so fucking low. Why don't the two of you just leave, fuck out of everyone's lives, and never come back?"

It was roughly at that point that I realised all eyes in the house were on me. The whole place had gone silent except for the quiet music filtering through the stereo in the other room. I stood, under the scrutiny of nearly every living relative I had, done yelling and now nearly crying. Most of my relatives were gaping at me in shock-horror. Very few, I could tell, were silently proud of me for verbalising the thoughts of nearly every member of the family. And one person, my cousin Tom, of course, was just laughing to himself. Tom was always my favourite of all my relatives, and that was saying a lot about my family, because I pretty much hated Tom with every fiber of my being.

My parents both looked more shocked than my mother had before, but right before they could speak, I did what any teenager would do: I ran. Glad that I'd decided on flats over heels, I bolted out of the room, across the house, and up the stairs that led to the second story. I tore past every door in the second-story hallway until I reached that of the room I'd changed in, the room that was designated as mine whenever I stayed at that dreaded house. Once inside of the room, I stripped my dress off, unable to stand the stench of whiskey any longer, and slipped back into my t-shirt and jeans, then dove under the covers of the bed, buried my face into the pillow, and began to bawl my eyes out.

Now, there's tearing up, there's weeping, and then there's the kind of sobbing that shakes your whole body and anything that happens to be touching it. The kind that actually hurts your throat and chest, that makes your head pound and your lungs void themselves of any vital air they once contained. That latter kind of crying was exactly the kind I was experiencing. I couldn't believe it, the gall my parents had to show up and expect that "Mother Earth needed us" would be a sufficient excuse for why they'd abandoned me. They had no clue how they'd fucked up my life, made it nearly impossible for it to every be truly normal.

Two sharp but brief knocks interrupted my self-pity. I hesitated before answering, scared to let anyone in on the off chance that it was the two people I just bitched out, but a familiar voice followed shortly.

"Lola, it's Matt. Just came to check on you." Matt's voice was gentle and soft, but I still heard him loud and clear.

"Oh. Come in," I replied after hastily wiping as much of the running mascara off of my cheeks as I could. I hugged my now damp pillow to my heaving chest in anticipation as Matt slowly turned the doorknob. When his face appeared from behind the door, he had a cautious smile on.

"Hi," he said softly. He approached the bed slowly and waited until I patted the empty spot next to me before he sat on top of the duvet. "You've no idea how utterly sorry I am that all of this has to happen to you."

I just shrugged, and he could sense that I didn't really want to talk about it, so he simply leaned back against the headboard of the bed and patted his chest as a sign that I could cuddle into it. I gladly accepted the gesture and rested my head right under his chin as he pulled his arms around me. At that point, I couldn't keep my composure anymore, and I began to sob once more, this time into the shirt of Tom's that Matt was wearing. He didn't seem to mind, just twirled the ends of my hair around his finger and occasionally whispered a soft "Everything's okay, love" in my ear, followed by a kiss on the top of my head.

When it seemed I was all cried out, Matt dried my eyes with his sleeve and positioned himself so he could actually look at my face instead of just the top of my head. He just stared at me with a smile until I spoke up.

"So, to get my mind off of the shitty topic at hand, what's going on in Mattyland?"

He made the "I'm milling about with my thoughts" face for a moment. "School bullshit, working on new songs with the band, we've got a show next Saturday, which I'm really hoping a certain girl will go to."

This sparked my interest, and I let my sadness drift to the back burner. "Who's this lucky lady then, ey?" Truthfully, I was a little let down that he was expecting a ladyfriend to show up.

"Well, I mean, if I told you who she is, that'd ruin the fun of it!"

I sighed. I hated the guessing game, but whatever. "She go to your school?"

"Nope."

"...She your age?"

"Few months younger, but yeah."

"Hair colour?"

"Well, that's a dead giveaway."

"Fine, you twat. Eye colour?"

"Brown, but they may as well be black."

"Now hair colour?"

Matt just laughed and let his head hang slightly. "Are you really that thick?"

I pretended to take offense to his comment, sitting upright and crossing my arms over my chest. "Excuse you! I am not!"

"Who else do I know who's a few months younger than me, has nearly black eyes and a unique hair colour, and doesn't go to my school?"

Now I had the milling-about-with-my-thoughts face. "Erm... I mean, Sarah's eyes can get pretty dark when she's angry, or--"

"Sarah's older by more than a few months, Thicky McThick. Try again."

"I give up." I sighed and flopped backwards on the bed, but Matt crept closer. His arms straddled my shoulders and his face was now mere centimetres away from mine.

"I'll give you a hint: I'm about to kiss her," he whispered confidently, but added, in true polite Matt fashion, "if she'll let me."

My initial pang of jealousy subsided and was now replaced with what I can only describe as sixteen billion butterflies during a hurricane, all inside of my stomach. I nodded weakly, and Matt bent his head down further until our lips collided. Matt and I had kissed before, just the seemingly platonic forehead, nose, cheek, or top-of-the-head kisses, but nothing full-frontal like this, as in lips and tongues and my hands running through his soft hair while his kept him propped up above me.


It was after a few minutes that Matt and I both pulled away. My hair had fallen out of its ponytail and was now a great white and lavender mess, which I quickly smoothed down with my palms, but Matt's remained flawless. Loser.

"Sorry," he mumbled, "I may have gotten a little carried away."

I giggled and pressed my lips to the corner of his mouth briefly to assure him that I was okay with it. "Don't be sorry."

Now Matt was grinning. He brushed his hand over my arm and immediately goosebumps rippled up the skin. "How 'bout you and I blow this place and spend the rest of Christmas Eve with people we actually enjoy, yeah?"

The moment I nodded, he slipped out of the room to change back into his own clothes, and I pulled my hoodie, flats, and scarf back on. When he re-entered the room, our hands clasped with one another's and we walked out of the room, down the stairs, and breezed past my sorry excuse for parents without so much as a word.

Except for when I shouted "Fuckers!" rather loudly on the way out of the door.