Friendship And Family (Currently undergoing a rewrite. Do Not Read.)

CHAPTER 19. Rejection

                 Andrew's POV

I stretched my arm towards my bedside table, gaining full consciousness after tapping the surface without feeling my phone. I then strengthened up in a hurry and hit the light switch close to the headboard of my bed, only for my eyes to confirm its absence in the brightness of my room.

Andrew, Andrew...

I recalled Mum's voice in the middle of the night, and how I'd grumbled a response because I was too sleepy.

"No, this can't be happening!" I whisper-yelled in panic as I started searching around my bed, refusing to yield to the obvious answer that Mum was in posession of it.

"Damn it!" I stopped the futile search and, with a heaved sigh, I covered my face with my hands, knowing sooner or later that I'd have to face her, at the same time regretting why I'd slept off on my addiction. I then got out of my bed to get it over with once and for all.

I stood in front of her room door for a moment, then raised a hand, holding it up for another short moment before I finally summoned the courage to knock.

"Come in!" She sounded wide awake, making me assume she had been on her laptop all night.

I slowly opened the door and went in. As expected, she was at her work table, typing her keyboard away, and the lights were on.

"Good morning, Mum," I greeted when I reached her.

"Hmm, Andrew..." she said, barely audible, in a wearied tone of disappointment, making it obvious that she'd seen what she wasn't supposed to see and knew why I was here, coupled with the fact that I never show up in her room at five o'clock in the morning.

"Mum, I know you have my phone, and I want it back."

She scoffed, one that reaped me off the guts to be audacious after what she'd found out, and then she stopped typing and turned to her side, facing me squarely. She could make a face model for insomnia, but it wasn't just her lack of sleep with work, but also the stress of having to raise two teenage kids all by herself.

"If your phone isn't only useful to call, chat, check on your friends, for good exposures on social media... then you don't need it."

"You can't just take my phone whenever you please. I'm not a kid." I could endure any other thing she deemed fit for correction than this particular control she had over my liberty that was so old-fashioned and barbaric. But unfortunately it seemed to be the only upbringing lesson in her parental book.

"You're not an adult either!" she yelled. "And whoever said pornography is good for anyone?" She threw the word in my face, her eyes condemning.

Shame was the last emotion on earth I wanted to feel, so I flushed it out of my chest with a surge of anger. "You had no right to go through my phone."

She laughed, an improbable and provoked laughter. "You mean," she then said, tying the belt of her purple silk robe as she stood up from her chair, as if preparing for a combat, "the phone you bought with your money." She pointed at me at the mention of "your," before folding her arms across her chest.

I rolled my eyes in annoyance.

                   Anita's POV

"Yeah, you feed me, you clothe me, you house me, pay my fees—just rub it in my face like you parents do as if I asked for any of this!"

"I didn't ask for this either! God, what happened to you? You were never like this..."

I opened my eyes, unwillingly, regretting why the night hadn't swallowed me so I wouldn't have to wake up to the voices of mad hyennas. I thought with Dad out of the house, the quarrels from their room would stop, but Andrew seemed to have taken over Dad's place.