Parents

I was fuming when I got on the bus. I was so mad I nearly tore off a pervert's hand when he groped my butt. My stop couldn't come soon enough and when it did I bolted from the hot smelly public transportation vehicle and ran to the loft. My heart was pounding and my pulse could be heard in my ears. I was beyond angry and was nursing the heated feeling towards full out rage, and Jonathan was my target. I had had enough. His groping in the dark, his team's harassing me at work, his constant bad attitude at home. I couldn't take it anymore, I was going to knock him down a peg. Show him that I'm not some pathetic little girl he can push around and tease.

Something caught my eye as I charged inside the lobby of the building. It was around the corner by the boiler room. I don't know what possessed me to stop my pursuit of Jonathan but I stopped running and back tracked to peek around the corner. It was dark down the small hall, the over head lights burnt out and no one cared enough to replace them. Voices floated out of the darkness, one I recognized, but the other was an unknown woman's.

"I told you not to call the house!" She hissed.

"I have every right to. You can't keep her from the truth." Valentine replied in his deep threatening voice. It was that of a lawyer facing a stubborn judge, it was full of self-confidence and arrogance.

"Yes I can, if only you would just butt out. You're not apart of our family. You're nothing to us." The woman spat and I saw a twinkle of gold in the darkness. "We're getting married. We're done with you Morgensterns."

"How can you be done with us?" Valentine challenged darkly. "You house one. And what of Jonathan? Can you really be done with him?" A chill ran down my spine from his tone. It reminded me why I never talk back to him or ever say something that would piss him off. He's a scary character that practically holds my life in the palm of his hand. At any moment he could choose to throw me out on the street without a second thought.

"Y-Yes. I have to. You've made your choices and I have made mine." She declared with a slightly shaky resolve. "Stay out of our lives or I'll call the police." She warned.

The sounds of footsteps started towards me and my body moved on it's own for my own safety. I hurried back around the corner and towards the elevator where I smack the call button and pretended that I had just gotten there. I crossed my arms over my chest and impatiently tapped my foot waiting for the lift to arrive like I usually do when I just want to get to my bed and sleep. Listening to the shoes slap against the tile of the lobby floor I waited for Valentine and his secret guest to come into view. I peeked sideways at them as the woman started for the door. She was in overalls covered in paint stains, not exactly the type of person I pictured Valentine with... Her hair was an orange-ish red held back with an everyday pencil. She was purposely avoiding looking at Valentine as he guided her to the door like a gentleman. He seemed entirely focused on the petite woman but maybe it was because I was looking at them that he turned to peer at me.

"Ah, Mira you're back awfully early." He commented and the woman stopped with the lobby door open and one foot outside. She whirled around to look at me and her bright green eyes pierced into me like an accusation.

"Umm, yeah I guess." I replied turning to face them completely. Valentine looked as if this situation was the most causal thing in the world while the woman reacted like there was a three headed dog in the room.

"W-Who ar-re you?" The woman stuttered as she continued to stare at me.

I opened my mouth to reply but Valentine beat me to it. "This is Mira Tyler, she's renting the spare room in the loft. She's been quite helpful over the last year."

"I have?" I questioned without thinking.

Valentine's dark eyes narrowed at me and I shut my mouth. His female guest looked from me to him and back again. Her angry expression turned to one of motherly concern and worry. It gave me goosebumps. I wasn't used to those kind of feelings, or that look. It was foreign and strange.

"She looks like a high schooler." The woman stated. Her hand that gripped the door handle tightened making her knuckles white and her fingers tremble from the force.

"She's in the same grade as your daughter." He replied and another shiver went down my spine.

The woman gasped and it sounded like, "Dear god." But I wasn't sure, they were to far off and she had turned away from me covering her face with her free hand.

Just then the elevator doors opened and I was freed from the oddly tense and uncomfortable atmosphere. I, without saying anything, stepped inside the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. As the doors closed I heard the woman yell, loud and full of hate, "You bastard! You dare replace her with an innocent child!"

I stared at the reflective surface of the closed doors as I was lifted up to the top of the building. I looked confused. And stressed. My forehead was creased and my hair was a disaster, falling out of the high ponytail I had put it in that morning. That woman said a lot of weird things. Who was she? Valentine's ex-wife probably. But what did she mean she was done with the Morgensterns? Isn't she Jonathan's mother? Some mother.

The elevator doors opened and I stepped out absentmindedly digging through my backpack for my keys. My head spun around the scene I witness down stairs. If that woman was indeed Jonathan's mother then I might have sympathy for Valentine and Jonathan. She gave no reasons to be left alone. She was even abandoning her son. How old had Jonathan been when she left? Did he miss her? Would therapists call his behavior "acting out" to get attention? I had thought Jonathan had chosen to stay with his father because his mother was much worse, but apparently that wasn't the case. She had purposely left him behind, and wanted nothing to do with him, so maybe she was worse than Valentine. I finally managed to find my keys and unlocked the front door as my mind continued to circle and fill with questions.

"About time!" Groaned Jonathan from the living room. He was sprawled across the couch with his feet perch on the back of it and his arms folded under his head.

For a moment my anger and annoyance flared up and I knocked his feet from the back of the couch as I past him on my way to the kitchen. After that I calmed down, my will to argue and shed blood faded. My body refused to attack Jonathan after hearing what I did downstairs, and the possible conclusions I came to. Some things just aren't worth making a big deal of when there were real problems to handle.

"What the hell!" He hissed sitting up and glaring at me. I dropped my backpack onto the breakfast nook as I past and began rummaging in the fridge for something to make for dinner.

"What do you want for dinner?" I asked as I noticed the cook had at least done the shopping before quitting. The fridge was fully stocked and there were plenty of possibilities.

"Huh?" He groaned and I popped my head up above the half wall that separate the kitchen from the living room.

"I asked what you wanted? Unless you called me only to say you weren't hungry and to bug the hell out of me." I said leaning my arms against the wall. He looked confused and it was a first for me to see him make such a face. I chortled.

He glared at me. "You're not screaming. Or cursing me up a wall." He noted flatly.

"Yeah." I replied raising a brow.

"You chewed my head off over the phone." He added.

"Yeah." I repeated.

His black eyes narrowed and I just continued to stared back at him with curiosity. Where was he going to go with this?

"I want chicken. Make it." He ordered flopping back onto the couch staring up at the ceiling.

I sighed not the least bit surprised he gave up on his interrogation of my attitude. He didn't care and I knew that. I turned for the fridge again pulling out a package of chicken breasts and some eggs, I figured breaded chicken was a good idea. I began with washing my hands then all the veggies that were going along with dinner. It wasn't until I began cutting the chicken in half that I found the silence awkward. Jonathan was just laying on the couch without even the TV on. I thought he would have disappeared inside his room by now, or left to go pick up girls just to annoy me, but no. He was still there, quiet, still, and almost haunting.

"Why'd you sleep with the chef's wife and niece?" I asked to fill the silence. I probably could have come up with a better topic if I had tried, but my mouth had other ideas, like getting me killed.

"Because they asked me to." He answered flatly. My hands stopped moving, knife mid-way through the chicken, and my head snapped around to look at him.

"And you just accepted?" I inquired shocked. I always thought Jonathan was the engager not the one being asked. He's always looking for another girl to fool around with it just seemed it was always him, not the girls.

"I was bored and didn't have any reasons to decline them." He said matter-of-factly.

I had nothing to say to that so I returned to making dinner. How could that woman sleep with her husband's employer's son? Why do women do that? Sleep around and leave the person they said they loved, it makes me sick. I hate it. Valentine's ex-wife is no different, leaving him for his best friend and abandoning her son like he doesn't matter. I slammed the pan of chicken into the oven along with the door.

"I hate parents." I growled to myself as I turned to the chopped veggies I was going to make salad with.

"Really?" Jonathan said sarcastically from the the archway of the kitchen. I jumped startled. I hadn't heard him get up from the couch. "Because you being here instead of with your family says so much."

"Shut up." I said turning away from him.

"Oh is your attitude back?" He teased.

I glared down at the pile of veggies instead of him. If I glared at him I would only be giving him what he wanted, the satisfaction that he had managed to get to me. To annoy me. To make me mad. "Just shut up and go away. Dinner will be done in forty-five minutes." I replied flatly.

"Why should I go when we finally have a topic we finally agree on." He took a step towards me a devilish smile on his handsome face. "Parents suck. I hate mine too."

I whirled around anger and hatred surging through me. "You annoying bastard! SHUT UP. You don't know anything." I yelled running past him. I didn't stop until I reached my room. I locked my door and punched my pillows. "I hate this! I hate this!" I hissed collapsing onto my bed. I didn't want to get mad at him. I'm not mad at him. I'm mad at everyone in the world. Especially me. I hate me. I really hate me.

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