I'm not sure anyone is reading this still as it's been so long since I updated, I apologise it's been mad busy. Firstly another apology for the chapter is short dispite it being so long in coming, but these first few chapters are really a set up for the main storyline - which is occuring very soon. I'm aiming to get a chapter up on both this fic and my other fic Starting Over every two weeks so I do hope there is still some interest.
I make another red x across today on my calendar, it won't be long before mom comes to tell me to turn off my light and hop into bed. I count the red crosses in front of me, there are 24 in total. 24 days since we got home from school to my mom and dad screaming at each other, which means 24 days since I last saw him. By the time we got back from grandma's he'd gone. She was back at work and so I didn't even see her until the next afternoon. She acted like nothing had happened, like we hadn't seen anything. Emily had asked where dad was. She just said gone. Nothing more and nothing less, he was gone. Since then Emily asks every few days when he'll be back. Mom just shrugs. I asked Lauren if she had any clue about what had happened, what was happening. Had dad left us? Or was he simply back on the tour he'd so abruptly left to come back and argue with mom? The only good thing to come of it is that I think mom finally misses him, misses us. At first she was at work all the time, but now in the past week she's been home more. She even collects me and Emily from school. Sadly it means Lauren is hardly ever home. I don't know where she goes because mostly she doesn't come home until I'm asleep – which means I never talk to her. I don't know whether she's just avoiding mom or all of us. I did hear her telling mom she was going out with her boyfriend two nights ago though, I never even knew she had one. For a long time now it's felt like it was me and Lauren against the world, which probably sounds silly. What 17 year old wants to be best friends with their kid brother? But that was what I thought we were. My family is just one big compromise. If I have Lauren I can't have my mom, if I have my mom I can't have my dad, and if I have my dad then I'm stuck with Emily.
"Hey buddy," Mom starts as she comes into my room. I scramble across my bed and settle in it and she sits next to me, her back against my wall. "Aren't you going to ask?"
"Ask what?" She laughs a little.
"Did you forget I was at Parent/Teacher night tonight?" Truthfully when she got the girl next door to babysit for me and Emily I had just thought she was going to work. Parent/teacher night wasn't really on my radar right now.
"I guess I did." She shook her head slightly and rolled her eyes and just for a minute I got a glimpse of my real mom, the one she was before she got obsessed with work.
"Anything you want to tell me about school?" I winced slightly as I tried to think of something I'd done wrong that my mom would now be aware of – but I came up with nothing so shook my head. "Connor your teacher tells me that the class had an aptitude test the other week. Connor you're an average student right?" I nodded my head. "Well see average students don't usually score top of the class on aptitude tests." Top of the class? Sure I'd thought the test was kind of easy but I didn't think I'd do that well. "Which for me and your teacher begs the questions how you can only be getting average grades." She paused and I realised that she was waiting for an actual answer from me. I could merely shrug at her. "Connor when I was in high school everyone thought I was some silly cheerleader without a real thought in my head. And while it's true I did struggle mainly with math the truth is like a lot of kids I guess school was fun, it wasn't serious and it didn't mean anything, besides only geeks were smart and I didn't want to be a geek. So I didn't try. Connor how hard do you try at school?"
"I try in sports." Probably not the answer she wanted but that's the way it was.
"Connor you really try at everything, this test shows you'd be good at it all if you did. And that lasts much longer than what your friends think."
"It's not about my friends they don't care. I hate school I like sports. Besides being smart is Emily's thing." My mom laughed a little.
"You know more than one person in a family can be good at something."
"Being smart is what gets her dad's attention. Otherwise she'd just get passed over. I get your attention because I'm the baby anyway so it doesn't matter. Besides Lauren might not like me if I'm like Emily." It's not that I made the decision to hide my intelligence, it was just better all round. I didn't really like school, I was just good at it. But I found it easy to blend in with everyone else, if teachers knew I was smart they'd make it into a big deal which wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to play basketball. I wanted my family to be normal. I didn't want to be smart and I didn't want my favourite person in the world to think different because I was smart. Emily was smart and Lauren and me weren't. I didn't want Lauren to think it was me and Emily when it was me and her.
"Oh baby don't be silly, you kids we both love each of you as much as the others, we don't have favourites."
"You do, Emily is dad's and I'm yours...that's why Lauren hates it here because no one loves her but me." Had I been older I would have seen more than shock in my mother's expression. But being ten I took it at face value.
"No Connor that's just not true. We don't have favourites." My mom sighed deeply and rubbed her forehead. "I don't know how this happened. I was going to give you all the childhood I never had, to know that you were so completely loved by us both no matter what. I wanted you to grow up safe in the knowledge that our love for you kids was without reserve." I turned on my side and hugged her then. She looked like she needed it. She held me tight against her.
"Connor I want you to work at school and be the best you can be – in EVERY subject. Emily will have to deal with not being the only smart one and Lauren will have to deal with you not joining her in getting average grades."
"I want her to still love me." I hated how my voice made me sound younger than I was.
"Lauren adores you, sometimes I think you're the one person that makes her stay. Without you I think she'd have run away a while back."
"I think she's the best sister in the world. She takes care of me."
"I know she does." Young as I am I could hear how sad my mom sounded.
Two weeks ago I turned to a new month on my calendar – which makes it exactly 38 days since I last saw my dad. But now he's back. His car pulled up in the driveway a little while ago. Since mom didn't seem surprised I guess she's spoken to him. It's Friday night and since Lauren is grounded we're all home. He knocks at the door and mom lets him in, I don't know whether that means something or he's just forgotten his keys. Emily is down the stairs and throwing herself at him. I turn my face upstairs and see Lauren at the top. She is waiting there and I'm not sure what for. Dad spends a few minutes hugging Emily and listening to her talk before he finally looks at me.
"Come here little guy." I hurl myself at him despite the fact I want to insist he should no longer call me little guy. It feels so good to have him hug me.
"I didn't think you were ever coming home." He hugs me tighter.
"I've worked away for longer than this." He knows I meant after the argument we heard him and mom having but I guess like her he doesn't want to acknowledge it. He lets me go and looks down at me sternly. "Your mom told me about what's been going on at school. I want you to give it 110% from now on. I don't care what grades you get, any of you," he said this while he looked up to try and locate Lauren, "As long as you give it your all you can get an F so long as you tried." I look down kind of ashamed. "You going to come say hi to your old man Lauren?" His voice falters and he seems nervous to me. Maybe he is. I can't remember the last time he and my sister had any form of real contact. She slowly makes her way down the stairs and across the room. She's facing him though her face is difficult to read. I think maybe she's actually going to hug him. The sound of her open palm connecting with his face ricochets off every wall in the room. My mom's jaw drops stunned, so stunned in fact she doesn't even reprimand her. Emily's eyes bug open and I have no idea what on earth possessed my sister to do that. My dad's head swung round slightly from the impact, his hand goes up to cover his face where she made contact and he turns slowly back to face her. Stony faced Lauren stares right back, then as suddenly as she slapped him she breaks their eye contact and runs out the back door. We stand together shock encasing us for a minute or two before my dad runs out after her. I go to my room immediately and open my window trying to hear what my dad is saying to my sister out in the garden. I can see her sat on the swinging bench, she has her legs up and her arms round them as he approaches her.
"I'm already grounded." I'm surprised they are the first words she says to him, but I guess she's going to the punishment angle.
"Something made you think hitting me was a good idea Lauren." He'd sat next to her by now.
"What you said to Connor when he voiced his fear that you weren't coming back."
"That was the truth."
"That wasn't how he meant it and you know it."
"I don't see how that led to my daughter hitting me." This is dad's controlled anger which can sometimes be much worse than his normal anger.
"I was angry. Do you have any idea what it was like to have to walk them to grandma's after having the two of you at it like that? To answer questions about whether you'd be getting divorced and have you disappear before we got home for over a month. To have mom make out like it never happened. You didn't call or write or e-mail at all to any of us. Did you even consider what they were going through after witnessing that parental display? Then you show up here like it's been any normal book tour and expect us to all play along." She never mentions that she was worried, it makes me wonder if she was or whether she just doesn't want dad to know about it. That sounds like Lauren but right now I can't be sure.
"Put like that you have every right to be angry with me, but you don't even have the right to do what you did."
"Why are you back?"
"Lauren did you hear what I said?"
"Eavesdropping isn't very nice." I'd been so wrapped up in listening out my window I hadn't even realised my mom was in the room until she spoke to me. I jumped up and turned guilty to her.
"Sorry mom." She shrugged.
"Don't do it again. Come downstairs, your dad wants to talk to you." I followed my mom downstairs, Emily was sat on the sofa and I got the feeling she was waiting for us, a few minutes later a sulky Lauren came in with my dad.
"So as a treat for you all tomorrow your mom and I thought it would be nice if she and Emily went for a girly shopping day and Connor, Lauren and I – despite Lauren's behaviour – could go to see the Bobcats play tomorrow. Nate and Jamie are going and Keith and Leo." I glanced over at Lauren and could easily see how relieved she was that she wasn't expected to be a girl for the day when she would obviously be happier watching the game with us. While she looked a little ill at ease with the idea I was thrilled. It'd been a few years since dad had taken me to a Bobcats game and I didn't think I'd be able to sleep tomorrow with the excitement.