"Dad?" I called out to him, my voice a little rough.
He awoke with a start. "Daria," he said, relief in his voice. "I should have told you to check with me before eating any strange plants."
"It's okay. It was either that, or Jane stinking up my tent again," I kidded. He didn't respond. "Dad?"
"I don't want you hanging out with Jane any more, Daria," he said.
My blood ran cold. "What?" My voice was raised. "Why not?"
He looked pained. "When you told me what...what Jane had done to herself before, I didn't believe you, Daria, because I knew you liked saying extreme things to try to get a rise out of me. But when I saw she had actually DONE it, I...only then did I realize what a bad influence she is on you."
"A bad influence?" I was dumbstruck.
He nodded. "You hardly come home before curfew any more, sneaking in at all hours of the night. Just the other week, you came home just before sunrise."
"...Since when do I have a curfew?" I asked, surly. "No, really, you've never mentioned it before."
"I shouldn't have HAD TO, Daria!" he shouted at me, his mood worsening at the same rate as mine. "I thought you were a smart girl! It's a good thing Jane's brother told me about his sister's behavioral problems -"
"Wait. You actually listened to her brother?"
"Of course I did. He told me all about her arrest record, and -"
"You BELIEVED HIS SHIT?" I screamed.
Dad was silent for a moment. Then, "You're not to see Jane again. That's final."
"Go fuck yourself."
His hand flew towards my face...and stopped, inches away. He stared at me, furious, his whole body trembling. Then he stomped out of my room without another word.
I started breathing again, and sat up. I found the clothes I had been admitted in in a drawer next to my bed, and got dressed as well as I could before disconnecting the instruments connected to my body. Once I had done so, I slipped out of the room as the machines announced my death, evading the nurses who came to attempt to revive me as I found a stairwell and slipped out one of the hospital's side entrances.
I was at Cedars of Lawndale, in the heart of the city. It was a simple matter to hop a bus back to my neighborhood (thankful that an orderly hadn't swiped the change from my pockets), and from the bus stop I went to Jane's house.
Trent was home.
I no longer cared.
I quietly made my way to the back of the house, finding the door there unlocked. Trent wasn't in the kitchen, nor was he in the living room. (Jane was in neither of those places as well). I slowly made my way up the stairs, heart pounding at the slightest 'squeak' of wood against wood. Finally, I reached the top of the stairs and tip-toed towards Jane's room.
Jane lay with her back to me, curled into a fetal position. "Jane," I quietly called to her. She jerked her head around and sat up.
"Daria, you shouldn't be here!" she hissed as loudly as she dared. I noticed the hospital bracelet still on her wrist. "You've got to go, before Trent wakes up!"
I knelt in front of her. "I want to see if I can run as good as you."
She stared at me for a moment before comprehension dawned in her eyes. She grabbed her backpack, emptied out the books, and shoved a few clothes and some money from a hole in her mattress into it, and we turned towards the door to her room.
Trent was there, shaking his head. "Daria, you know your father is rather sore with you right now? Seems you two had a rather nasty fight at the hospital, and then you escaped." He held up a cordless phone in one hand. "I just got off the phone with him. He should be here in about five minutes."
He walked over to Jane and took the backpack from her hands, which had suddenly lost all strength. He opened it and emptied the contents at her feet. "What's this?" he said as he spied the money Jane had shoved at the bottom. "You've been hiding a little nest egg from me, Janey?"
"No, I-"
Trent cut her off with a blow to her stomach. Jane doubled over, coughing. He turned to me. "Let's go wait downstairs for Jake to arrive, shall we?" After leaving Jane's room, he locked it from the outside and smirked at me.
The five minutes was more like half an hour, and Trent spent the entire time just staring at me. His gaze felt like maggots just under my skin, but my continued association with him was making my ability to repress vomit better by the day.
The drive home was completely silent. I didn't want to say anything to dad, and he didn't want to say anything to me. At home, he gestured I should go upstairs to my room, which was redundant since I intended to go up there anyway.
After an hour, I heard him began to work on the door, and I suspected I was getting an additional lock on the outside, so that I wouldn't be able to sneak off at night and be corrupted by the evil Jane. A little while after that, I was surprised to see him outside my window, on a ladder and replacing the old bars which had been sawn short by the previous owner before vacating the house.
I guess he didn't want to take any chances.
Around dinner time, he knocked on the door to my room. I opened it, and he handed me a tray of single-serve lasagna and a glass of water before shutting the door and securing the lock. No more dinners at the table, then.
A little while later, I knocked on the door (after finding it still locked) until dad said, "Yes?" from the other side.
"I have to go to the bathroom."
He opened the door and I went and used the facilities. After leaving, I stood in front of him before returning to my room. "You know, Dad, I would tell you why you shouldn't believe Trent, but then, that'd just be me saying something extreme to try to get a rise out of you."
His face was impassive, and I returned to my room and, after staying up and reading (and fuming) for a while, I went to sleep.
The next day Tommy Sherman came to school.