She studies me for a moment longer before turning around and pulling a box of cereal out of the pantry. “If I know my daughter, that’s exactly what she did.”
I freeze. Is she spying on me again?
“Ha-ha,” I say dryly.
She grabs a bowl and pours herself some cereal. “You need to be more careful, though. Stop adding to your list of injuries.”
“Yes, Mom,” I say in a flat tone, just to stop the impending lecture.
“And while you’re at it, stop sneaking boys in.”
My head snaps up to look at her. She’s not even looking at me, her back turned to me as she rummages through the fridge.
“What?”
She grabs the milk and turns back to me. “This is the first time I’ve properly seen you since Friday night, so don’t think I forgot to yell at you for letting that boy stay over on Friday.”
Shit. After her reprimanding text I thought she’d drop it. I thought I’d gotten away with that. I open my mouth and close it, no sound coming out.
“He wasn’t in my room!” It’s all I can say.
She pours the milk into her cereal and places it back in the fridge. “I know, I checked your room. But seriously, Amelia? This is why we need to move. You really think it’s smart to let this boy sleep over? You don’t even know him.”
“His name is Aiden, Mom. And I do know him.” My voice creeps up. I’m trying really hard to stay calm and talk to my mom like an adult and not throw a tantrum like I really want to. “I was helping a friend. I’m allowed to have those.”
She sits down at the table in front of me. “You can have a friend. You cannot have a boy sleeping in my house without my permission.”
“Would you have given me permission if I had asked?”
She glances up from her cereal and sends me a look that says, Really?
“And that’s why I didn’t ask,” I mumble, pushing around the remnants of the cereal in my own bowl. “He couldn’t go home.”
“Why not? He didn’t even sleep in your room, so what was the purpose of the sleepover? Why couldn’t he go home?”
Great. Now I’ve done it. She already doesn’t like Aiden, and here I am giving her more ammo against him. I can just imagine how that conversation would go: Well, Mom, he was arrested for killing his stepdad and his house is a crime scene. Yeah, that would earn him all the brownie points with my mom.
“He just couldn’t,” I mutter, standing up from the table to escape more questions. “Next time I’ll tell him to park around the block, okay?”
“Amelia!” she exclaims, a frown on her face. “That wasn’t the lesson you should be taking away from this. Don’t be a smart-ass.”
I inhale deeply as I try to keep my frustration from escaping. “And what should the lesson be, Mom? That I’m destined to live alone? That I’m not allowed to talk to anyone? That I’m supposed to be miserable until I die? If that’s the case, why don’t you just ship me to Bum-Chuck-Nowhere in the middle of the Arctic, where I’ll be the only person around for ten thousand miles?”
“You’re being dramatic, Amelia.”
I push through the lump in my throat. “I’m trying really hard to not hate my life, Mom. If I’m not allowed to live my life then I might as well just let Tony find me.”
“Amelia!” She’s been relatively calm throughout this conversation, but that made her mad. She takes a breath. “I know it’s been hard on you Amelia … Thea,” she adds on quietly. “But we’re doing all of this to keep you safe. I love you and I want you to be happy, but most importantly I want you safe. If that means making some sacrifices then that’s what we’ll do.”
I look away from her. “You don’t understand. You got to have your high school experience. You get to leave and go anywhere and be anyone you want. You even get to have a boyfriend. I just don’t want to live my life by going through the motions.”
She’s quiet for a moment as she looks out the sliding door. “When you become a parent, you don’t ever think this is something you’ll have to deal with. I’m doing my best, Amelia.”
I hesitate, the anger draining from my body even though I really want to stay mad. I think back to how she’s making us leave, tearing me away from my friends, while she’ll still be able to take flights to visit her boyfriend.
“Well, your best sucks.” I turn to run out of the room before she can say anything else, not even caring that I rudely left my half-eaten bowl of cereal on the table for her to clean up.
“This is seriously the best empanada I’ve ever had,” I tell Natalia, M