Hi again! Here's another major chapter! Hope you like it!
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Our three-day stay wound up lasting an entire week. Sure, I hadn't been able to change clothes in all that time, but I didn't really care. I was happy. We all were.
OK, maybe not all of us...
Mom, left behind by her husband and daughter, with no idea where they were. Cathy, knowing her life had been irrevocably torn apart. Me, I guess, because I was the one who did the tearing.
It turns out I'm not the only one who tried to do something about the situation.
On the day of the Second Intervention, Hawkeye was working and I was sleeping. What? It had been a pretty crazy week. I think it's acceptable to sleep in until 11am under the circumstances. Until that point, I hadn't really thought about What Came Next. I didn't know if we were staying in Maine on a permanent basis. I didn't know if I was going to have to go back. I didn't know if I'd have to choose between my parents. Things were just sort of happening, and I was just embracing it, like I had on that day five and a half years ago.
Things were about to get messed up.
I awoke to loud, insistent knocking; the kind that makes you want to open the door just so you can slam it in the knocker's face to stop them. Or maybe that's just me.
As it happened, I knew the knocker, as did Dad.
"Louise?" It was Mom. And that could only mean one thing: Cathy had sold me out.
"John, we need to talk. Now."
"About what?" I could feel an argument brewing. Oh, boy.
"Well, for a start, why you and Beck dropped of the face of the earth and resurfaced staying with Pierce!"
"This is not what it looks like." If ever there has been a phrase absolutely guaranteed to convince people that whatever it is is exactly what it looks like, then that is it.
"It's exactly what it looks like." And there it is...
"This really isn't the right place to be talking about this."
"Then where is the right place?" Her voice got louder. "And where the hell is Pierce, anyway? Because the three of us need to talk!" Why is it that adults always repeat themselves when they argue? It just doesn't make sense.
"He's not here. Just leave him out of this. And Beck, too."
"I was never going to bring her into this mess in the first place! It's Pierce who did that!"
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"It means he had no right to say the things he did!" It wasn't just me who read the Letter, then.
"I know. And you have no right to tell me he's to blame for something that wasn't anything to do with him!" Whilst this was going on, I dressed and picked up my bag. I hadn't unpacked it, which was lucky.
"What do you mean, it wasn't anything to do with him? This had everything to do with him!"
I stepped into the line of fire. "It was me."
"Beck?" Mom looked at me questioningly. Then she engulfed me in the sort of hug thirteen-year-olds don't get. "It's OK. I know what happened. Don't blame yourself, it wasn't your fault."
"It was." I don't like being underestimated. I also don't like it when people dole out blame based on their own preconceptions. This was my doing. Mine, and no-one else's.
"We'll talk about this later. Just come home! Both of you!" By this point she was crying a little.
"No." Mom's expression shifted from teary-and-slightly-pissed-off-but-happy to just plain incredulous at my dad's response. "Look, I'm sorry it has to end this way, but I love Hawkeye, and I want to build a life here as best I can."
"John-"
"We're not discussing this."
"Becky," Now I was the one on the spot. "Please say you'll come home."
"OK." Someone had to say it. I stepped outside.
"I'll tell Hawk you said goodbye." Dad calls from behind me as Mom leads me away from the life I'd settled into.
"Don't. I never said it." I inherited a lot of things from my dad. My hair. My eyes. My dislike for one simple word. It's the last one I wish I could erase sometimes.
And now I had to say hello to the last person I wanted to see at that moment.
"Cathy."