I'm not a popular girl | ✔️

Three - Gossip

Zoë

Zoë heard arguing, screaming, crying, crashing, and the front door slamming hard as she pocketed her phone into the pocket of her jeans.

She sighed, shouldering her black leather backpack and stared into the mirror at the broken girl who looked back. Her caramel hair was tied up in a high ponytail with a cheetah print scrunchie and matching shirt. A black jacket and jeans matched with the animal tones perfectly.

She looked normal. Looked happy. But her eyes...

They told the truth, an entirely different story. They were broken, cracks of sky blue seemed to run through her cornea's and darkness seeped out of the depths of her iris's. The shadows that had been underneath her eyes, the same ones that had been there for seven months, didn't help her appearance one bit.

She couldn't hide from reality, no matter how hard she had tried. The truth of what had happened to her life in less than a year was to much to process, it weighed down on her. Her life had been thrown into a blender, poured out sloppily, mixed with a wooden spoon, and tossed right back into the blender.

Time to face the truths I wish weren't real.

Downstairs, nothing was different except for a thrown over chair and a shattered piece of china on the wood floor.

"Mom?"

Amelia Flynn held a broom shakily in her hands as she cleaned up the glass shards of a china plate Alec, Zoë's father, must've thrown when he stormed into their house this morning.

Seven months ago, Zoë and her mother found that Alec had gotten an addiction to drinking and had been wasting their money on things he thought he needed the entire time. He'd then left their little family, after a divorce was filed, and moved in with his drunken best friend across town.

After Alec had first broke into their house two weeks after he left, Zoë had called the cops and he was arrested for breaking and entering. Three months ago he was released and immediately went back to his old ways. Smoking, drinking, demanding money from his ex-wife.

No matter how many times Zoë had begged her mother to not listen to him, she kept giving in and giving him large amounts of money she earned from working at the salon she owned. That money could be used for bills or something useful but instead it was used to fuel Alec's addiction.

And Zoë hated it.

Yes, she knew her mom had been backstabbed and tossed aside multiple times in her life. From being kicked out of her family home at sixteen, to being declined to attending her dream college, and now, her ex-husband being a complete and total jerk.

She didn't have to give in to his every command, but she did.

She was an adult and she was supposed to think with her brain but her heart kept winning. She was still madly in love with Alec and wanted him to come home so they could be a normal family, like what had been going on had never happened. Zoë wished her mother could see that clearly instead of through cracked lenses.

"Here, let me help," Zoë said as she rushed to the pantry to grab another broom.

Mom sniffled, keeping her gaze glued to the ground. A bruise was starting to form on her cheek, her eyes wet and haunted. Mom was usually a pretty woman, her long blonde hair always up in a fancy updo or down in long braids. She was smart, she had a Master's degree in Cosmetology, and was the most caring mother in the entire world. She didn't deserve the crap Alec kept dishing out.

"Mom?" she asked again.

"Hmm?" She looked up slowly.

Zoë gently reached out to touch her forearm. "Are you okay? Do you want me to call the police again? He knows he shouldn't be coming around this place, especially if he's breaking and entering."