Demi Lovato Imagines

Bad Influence

You can't help but smile as you slide your key into the front door, slowly turning it so as to not make a sound. The ghost of Robbie's kiss still lingers on the corner of your lips, and a soft bruise on your arm where he held you tight as you made out in the back of his car, up by the recycling centre at the edge of town. He's careful not to rev the engine as he pulls away from the end of your drive, purring down the road until his taillights are out of sight. With a content sigh, you push the door open. 

Inside, it's black as night so you shuffle your socked feet forwards across the wooden floor, scrolling through Twitter to see what you missed over the past three hours that you've been otherwise occupied. Reaching for the bannister, your heart jumps as, to your left, a light is flicked on. 

"Y/n."

"Jesus, dad," you breathe, hand on your chest, phone almost slipping from between your fingers. The side lamp makes his face glow as he sits in the living room's main armchair, both feet planted on the carpet in front of him. "What are you doing up?" You try to maintain the tune of indifference in your voice as if the answer could be as simple as a bout of insomnia. 

"Waiting for you," he answers. You don't dare look down at your phone to check the time. It wouldn't help your case. 

"Oh? Well, you didn't need to bother. I must have lost track of time, we...well, we were just watching a movie and it was quite long..."

"We?"

"Me and Robbie. Yeah."

You hear him suck in through his nose, a tell-tale sign that you've learned to try and avoid. 

"Your mom's been worried," he says eventually, monotone. You shift your weight back and forth between your feet, bare legs shivering in the dark. "We both have."

A pause. 

"Sorry. I should have texted. I'll apologise to her in the morning." You go for the stairs again, readying yourself to take them two by two, halving the time you would spend still in your father's earshot. But before you can even make it to the first one, you hear her from upstairs. 

"Wilmer? Is that her?"

The waver in her voice makes your toes curl. You hate when she does this: the whole concerned mother act as if she's in some sort of community college stage play where the emotional performance needs to be turned up to an eleven. Your dad doesn't reply as she descends the stairs, her dressing gown grazing the floor behind her. She wraps her arms tightly around herself, dark hair falling over her shoulders like she's just come off a photo shoot. 

"Y/n, where have you been?" she weeps, rushing down and opening her arms to you. You step back automatically, closing yourself off. She halts a pace away from you, awkwardness making the silence that much louder. 

"Nowhere," you shrug. "Just out."

"It's two-thirty a.m." she says, that fragility still dripping from her words. 

"We lost track of time."

Before she even asks, your dad cuts in. 

"Her and Robbie."

Your mom nods slowly, the concerned creases of her face smoothing out into a passive expression of resignation. "I see."

You look between them. "See what?"

Your parents look at each other, now both avoiding your gaze. "I thought we told you we didn't want you seeing him anymore," you dad says. 

"Yeah? That was when you thought his mom was in prison for a DUI."