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CHAPTER TWENTY! ( FROSTED WINDOWS. )
JOAN HAD BEEN forced to pack up her things and leave Welton without a chance to say goodbye to her friends. Her father couldn't comprehend her actions at all, or more to the point, he didn't try to.
Jo leaned against one of the long windows in her house, staring at the frost on the glass. She'd only been home for a day, but it felt like way longer. It was too quiet here, the quiet felt cold. Not just in temperature, the silence was colder than the frost on the window.
After her father took Jo into his office and spoke with her about the expulsion like any other business matter, he decided to ground her. That meant no outside contact until they sorted out her schooling arrangements. He also made sure that she knew that she were to never speak to Charlie again. He didn't even know that they were dating, but he was sure that being in close quarters with both Keating and Charlie was the cause of his daughter's rebellion.
Every look from her family felt like their eyes were glazed with ice. Emotionless, which was sometimes scarier than anger. This wasn't unfamiliar to Jo, she'd been convinced she came from a line of Abominable Snowmen for years. It just didn't feel right. She'd lost a friend, but there was never any space to grieve here, and there was never any sympathy. There was never any heartfelt conversation or even any pat on the back. There was no anger for her outburst anymore. Just cold.
Jo didn't have anyone to talk to anymore, she wasn't allowed to use or answer the phone. She'd been standing by windows and staring at the ceiling for hours now. She didn't know where to put all the feelings so she reverted back to keeping them inside like she always had. For a moment Jo let herself remember Charlie's warm brown eyes and what it felt like to hug him. What it felt like to kiss him. What it felt like for him to hold her hand and just talk to her.
Jo knew that she couldn't go on doing things the way she used to because Keating showed her a new way. Charlie showed her a new way that just felt so much better. So Jo walked over to her desk and pulled out a pen and paper. It wasn't poetry, but she just wrote. She wrote about Neil. She wrote about Keating. She wrote about how much she missed the club. How much she missed Violet. And how much she missed Charlie.
For the first time since Jo left Welton she let yourself cry. She wanted someone to hold her, and she needed someone to share her sorrows with. So she just kept writing until the tears made the sentences illegible.
❦
"You'll be going to Ridgeway High, at least for now. We've sorted out all the details with the administration. You'll be starting on Monday. You are to go to and from school every day and nowhere in between, understood?" her father said one evening over dinner.
"Understood," Jo stated, fighting back a small smile. She would finally be able to leave. That was all that was said, only the soft clinking of cutlery against plates followed.
