Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans. If I did... well... I'm not really sure what I'd do because I'd be so stinking rich I could do almost anything that I wanted to.
Philophobia
Chapter Three
"Do you want me to take you to school?" my mother came up from behind me and asked, her keys in her hand.
"What?" I asked. "No, I can drive myself. I have my own car."
"I know, but..." Arella bit her lip and looked down at the ground. "I was hoping that I could spend some time with you, as in out of the house after school."
"Why?" The word came out sharper than I had intended it to. I didn't exactly mean to ask that in the tone that I did. Oops. She was not going to be happy.
"Because I am your mother and I think it would be nice if we could go to the mall after school or go eat dinner or something for some quality time."
"But it's Friday. My friends and I always have Movie Night on Friday's."
"Oh," my mother's eyebrows meshed together. "Why don't they ever come here for 'Movie Night' then? I mean, we have a good selection of movies and our TV isn't small or anything."
I sighed, there really was too much to explain when it came to the fact that my friends didn't come to my house for reasons that none of them questions. Really, the real reason that they don't come is because when we started Movie Night (which was around the time that we all started high school) she was still a drunk and I didn't want to have to explain to my friends what was going on. Only Gar and Vic knew that my mother was once an alcoholic, and I was planning on keeping it that way at the time.
It was not as though I could explain this to my mother, though.
"Because we like to go to Wayne Manor and watch movies over there because Dick has a home theater," I lied. In truth we have a cycle. First it's Kori's house, then Gar's, then Dick's, and then Vic's. Skipping my house has always just been a part of the process, and that wasn't about to change any time soon. It was Kori's turn to host this week.
"That makes sense. Well... when does Movie Night start?"
"Around eight." Of course my mother wouldn't know that. On most Friday nights she was either on a date or too engrossed in a painting to even think about coming to the outside world let alone pay attention to me and whether or not I was actually at home or not.
"Well why don't I take you to school, we can take a sweep of the mall, check out some sales and then then I could drop you off." For some reason I was having flashbacks of the second grade. But I also knew that there was no getting out of this. When my mother had an idea she was like a dog with a piece of meat; she wasn't ever letting go. It was probably one of the reasons that she was such a great artist, because she didn't let go of inspiration but instead she took it and ran.
"That sounds fine," I answered. Why, oh why, was there defeat in my voice?
*
Needless to say the suspense of spending some 'quality time' with my mother made me not be in the best of moods. I took some of my anger and channeled it on some harmless freshmen just because I could and knew that what I was doing was undirected. I just needed to calm down.
"Whoa, what happened to you?" Gar came up from behind me and asked. "You're never that vicious to freshmen. Or to anyone really."
"I am fine, just don't ask."
Of course, because it was Gar, he did ask and we ended up getting into a huge fight over it. It felt good to let that pent up rage out (even if it was only part of it) but I knew that I was channeling it to the wrong person.
When we were done and I had successfully made Gar walk away angry a small girl was standing off to the side, staring. "What are you looking at?" I barked harshly at her. She flushed and walked away quickly, staring at the other side of the hallway.
Calm down, calm down I pleaded with myself. Too much anger was a bad thing for me, as I have learned. I slipped into the nearest bathroom and sat on an obliging toilet, rubbing my fingers over my temples in circles breathing in and out slowly.
Eventually my heart beat slowed and evened out and I had managed to pack apart my rage. Gar probably wouldn't want to talk to me right now, and I wouldn't blame him if he ignored me for the rest of the day. It had been a very long time since I had taken out my fury on him, and he was probably having post traumatic flashbacks.
I put my face in my hands. My mother always could bring out the worst in me.
*
When my mother picked me up she was smiling. "Hi honey, how was your day at school?" Definitely second grade flashbacks. What was the punchline here?
"It was okay, I guess." In reality I had to skip fourth period (which was Study Hall, one of the classes that I had with Gar) to calm myself down and after that I had an okay rest of the day. I decided to skip lunch and fifth period too, to avoid Gar and everyone else and had just sat outside underneath a tree and read.
None of the others bothered me, though I wasn't sure if that meant that Gar told them about our fight or if because he didn't.
"How was yours?" I forced myself to ask.
"It was good, I finished my painting."
"'Serendipity'?"
"Yes, that one. I've got an idea for another one but I need some time to figure it out."
"Like?"
"Well, I'm not sure how the color scheme should work, like what colors could go with what. I'm thinking about going on another artist's retreat. If that's okay with you, of course." My mother looked at me. She had never before looked at me for my opinion on wheter or not she wanted to go on one of her artist's retreats before. This whole thing was starting to make me really suspicious.
"That's fine."
"Yes, well, I'm planning to go on another artist's retreat pretty soon, and then I think I will have finished planning it out and I'll have to wing it from there."
"Ah." It was silent in the car for a while. I could tell that my mother was desperately trying to grab at topics for conversation. My one or two word answers unnerved her. I don't know what she thought today was going to be like, but it wasn't going along with her plan.
"So, what about you? What's going on in your world? You still dating that boy, um, Mal er Mal-"
I cut her off before she could even begin. Lord knows what she would end up calling him. "We broke up over a year ago."
"Oh."
"Why aren't you with Kevin tonight?"
"I thought it would be more fun to spend some girl time with you than to be with him tonight." I couldn't figure my mother's motives out. Never before had she tried to spend some 'girl time' with me, and now it was all she wanted to do on a Friday night?
The rest of the shopping trip, or 'girl time' went about just as well as I had imagined. My mother had eventually stopped trying to continue the awkward conversation she had attempted to the car. We spent about an hour in two stores that had a sale (or at least that's what it said on a sign, I wasn't really trying to pay attention.
When I told her that it was time to go she had looked about as thankful at the passing time as I was.
I could tell that my mother was relieved when she dropped me off at Kori's without even asking why we weren't going to Wayne Manor instead. She sped off and I found myself waving at her and wondering what the deal was all of a sudden.
When I walked in everyone was already getting ready, Dick was in the kitchen putting the popcorn into a bowl and I could hear Vic and Gar bantering about something that I guess had happened while I wasn't around. Kori was humming and looking through her movie selection. Everything was as it should be, even though I wasn't there.
When Kori heard her sliding door open she stopped humming and looked up. "Oh... Raven." She paused for a moment. "We were not sure if you were coming or not." Kori cleared her throat. "But you can still watch of course. I was think about us watching this." She holds up a familiar movie cover. When Harry Met Sally, I read. I used to watch this movie all of the time when my mother had left the house going off to Lord only knows where. I loved it, and at one time had known almost all of the lines by heart. Not that anyone else knew this, of course.
The boys probably wouldn't be too fond of it (except for some of the funnier parts) but the host of that week's Movie Night got to pick the movie. Dick and Vic usually picked action and spy movies, even though Dick had some of the older ones and Vic had the newer ones. When we came to Gar's it was usually something either really scary or geekishly sci-fi. And when at Kori's either we watched a documentary (for some reason Kori found these fascinating) or a sappy romance. At least this was a good one tonight.
"That sounds great Kori. I've always liked that movie." Now the boys had come up silently and began listening when I wasn't paying attention. "Hey guys," I wave at them, a bit sheepishly because it was pretty stupid of me to avoid them all day and the show up for Movie Night.
But I just had to find a way to get away from my mother as soon as I could.
And, if I was being honest with myself I just really wanted to see all of my friends. They could always make me feel good even when I was at my lowest.
"Hey," Vic was the one who finally awnsered. "Kori, have you picked the movie yet?"
"Yes, and it will be glorious! Even Raven likes it." Kori held up the cover again.
"When Harry Met Sally? Really? I think I'd almost rather watch about how hot dogs were made again."
Dick turned a visible shade of light green. "I wouldn't. I used to acutally eat hot dogs, and I enjoyed them. Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"
We all went into Kori's living room, where there were pictures of her and her siblings everywhere. It was almost like a photo gallery of what was instead of what was now. Kori's brother is dead now, and she hasn't seen her sister in years. And yet her uncle still insists on keeping their pictures around just in case.
Vic took the reclining chair that he always took whenever we had Movie Night over at Kori's house. Kori and Dick shared the love seat (of course) and that left the couch for Gar and I. Lovely.
I sat down tentitively next to him, unsure wheter or not he was still mad at me. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if he was, because I had said some pretty harsh things that I shouldn't have.
Gar didn't even try to say anything, he just looked straight ahead and watched the previews. So he wasn't going to be the one to apologize.
I hate apologizing.
I took a deep breath to calm myself and then said, "Look, those things I said... I'm sorry. They weren't true and I was just saying that because I was... kind of upset."
"Yeah, I got that part acutally."
See, this is why I hate apologizing.
"So..." I paused.
"But you can't just do that, you can't take it out on me just because you're upset. That's not cool."
"I know, but... I'm sorry. It's easy to fall back into familar habits, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I get what you mean but you really should tell people what's wrong instead of getting all defensive and in their faces when they just want to help."
"So, you forgive me?"
"Nothing to forgive," Gar smiled at me. I could feel the grin on my face growing as well.
"Thanks, Gar. You're the best." I was about to say something else but Vic interrupted us.
"Will you two shut up, the movie's about to start."
I rolled my eyes. Some things just never change.
A/N: Oh Arella, you have much to learn. If you're wondering what Raven's deal with her mother I'll explain in detail later. Anyway, hope you enjoyed!
