Fire Escape Visits

Fights

Maya's POV

I sat on the ground with my back against my bedroom door and my knees to my chest as I listened to my parents discuss my punishment for drinking and skipping school.

Please, just be mad at me, I silently begged. Please, don't turn into a fight between you two.

"I think we should ground her, after we talk to her, of course," I heard Shawn say.

"You're letting her off too easily," mom said.

"Well, it's her first time," Shawn defended.

"No, it's not," my mother reminded him.

"Since I've been in her life," Shawn corrected.

Then, I heard a knock on my window and saw Lucas and Riley standing out on the fire escape.

"What are you two still doing here?" I asked them.

"We told my dad that we'd be helping you the rest of today," Riley said.

"So that's what we're doing," Lucas continued as they both climbed into my small room. "How's it going?"

"Not great, you came right at the beginning of another great argument," I said sarcastically.

"Still," mom said. "No, it's not the first time. You're just never home to deal with it!"

"I travel for work, Katy!"  Shawn yelled.

"And in the process, you're allowing her to become an alcoholic just like you."

There it was. The moment I knew that any hope of a civil conversation, or even healthy disagreement, had died.

I lifted my head up from my knees and banged the back of it against my door three times.

"Maya, don't," Riley said holding my hand when I went to do it a fourth time.

"Is that true, Maya?" Lucas looked at me. "Shawn's an alcoholic?"

"Was," I corrected. "When he was younger, after his dad died. It runs in his family," I explained. "He still needs to watch himself though to make sure he doesn't drink too much."

"Why are you blaming me?" Shawn yelled. "You want to talk about an alcoholic? How about that Kermit guy that nearly drank himself to death? You let him raise Maya with you for years, until he left both of you."

"Kermit is her father, of course I let him raise her," Katy scoffed. 

"Maybe you should ask him what to do about Maya, he is her father," Shawn said.

I could hear the pain in his voice as he said that. I got up and put my hand on the doorknob, contemplating whether or not I should try and break up their fight.

"I have to go take a walk, I'll be back in an hour," he said.

All unsureness left me and I immediately twisted the handle and rushed out to the room they were in. Shawn already had his jacket in his hand and his other hand was resting on the handle of the front door.

"Wait!" I yelled running to him. "Please, don't go, Dad," I begged, but he still walked out the door, one last click resonating throughout the otherwise now silent apartment.

I looked angrily at my mom. Then my anger turned to fear and sadness and my eyes filled with tears threatening to overflow.

"Babygirl, he's not like that," my mom tried to remind me.

But the tears started to fall down my cheeks and I ran back into my room slamming the door. I started pacing around my room frantically as tears continued to fall.

"Maya, what's wrong?" Lucas asked.

"I need to go," I told him.

"Where? Why don't you calm down first?" He suggested.

"I can't, I can't calm down, I need to go," I desperately told him. "I can't calm down here."

I climbed out my window and down the fire escape and started running, from Lucas, from Riley, from my mom, from all my problems.

A couple blocks down I was caught by Lucas shortly followed by Riley, both of them slightly out of breath.

"You forgot a jacket," Riley said as she draped one over my shoulders.

I hadn't even realized the near-thirty-degree weather until she mentioned my lack of a jacket.

"Where were you running to?" She asked.

"I don't know," I breathed.

"Why don't we go to my house and you can relax a little," she said.

"I thought you didn't want to hang out with me anymore," I said resisting. "I thought those rumors you heard about me scared you off."

"They did, at first," she admitted. "But they're wrong, I was wrong. Please, just come with me."

"Fine," I relented, allowing both of them to guide me through the streets, still not entirely stable on my feet. And I arrived yet again at Riley Matthews'.