“Kristin?” Mom asked sharply. “Are you listening to me?”
I blushed and sank lower in the seat. “Yes, ma’am,” I said quietly. “I’m listening.”
The odd urge to laugh didn’t fade for the rest of the day. When Mom and I got home, I carried my stuff upstairs and without thinking, shut the door behind me. An hour later, Mom was beating on my door and screaming angrily.
“Kristin, if you don’t open this door right now, I’ll break it down! You won’t be allowed to have a bedroom door, do you hear me, young lady?”
I got to my feet and yanked the door open just as Mom started beating both of her fists against the white-painted wood. She came stumbling into my room, gasping for air, her face bright red with anger.
I couldn’t explain why, but suddenly, I had to bite at the inside of my cheeks to keep from bursting out into laughter. It was ridiculous!
“You treat me like I’m a little kid,” I said pointedly, staring at my mom. “Weren’t you ever allowed to close your bedroom door when you were a kid?”
My mom’s eyes flashed angrily at me. “Kristin,” she spat through clenched teeth. “You need to learn how to act like a proper young lady if you’re going to stay in this house,” she said angrily. “And respecting your parents is the best and first way to do that.”
I frowned, narrowing my eyes. “It’s just a door,” I said blankly. “What the hell do you think I’m going to do in here by myself? Listen to music with curses?”
The sting of my mom
’s hand across my cheek was enough to make me cry out in pain.
“Kristin, I don’t know what you learned out there on your own, but you’re in my home now,” Mom breathed angrily. “And you’re going to play by my rules.”
Suddenly, Andrew’s face popped into my mind. It was the strangest thing – he’d used almost the exact same phrase shortly before I decided to come home. But he’d been telling me that I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to.
Now, my mom was telling me the opposite.
Dinner that night was even worse. Dean and Mom treated me like a kid – I wasn’t even allowed to serve myself, for fear that I’d drop the dish on the floor. It was fucking ridiculous. I didn’t know if they’d actually gotten worse, or if it was just in my mind. After all, I’d had a couple of days away from my parents. And I’d gotten quite the “education” about how different things could be in a house with no rules.
“Kristin,” Mom said. “You’re coming to Bible study with me tonight. The theme is learning how to obey what God wants for us.”
I rolled my eyes. “I have to study,” I lied. “I should be on track when I start the next semester.”
“Then maybe you should have thought the better of lying to me,” Mom snapped. “You’re coming and that’s final.”
I looked up at Dean, hoping to plead my case. “Dean, I really need to finish this paper,” I said. “Please?”
Dean sighed. “Kristin, you lied about doing that before,” he said slowly. “Listen to your mother. She knows what’s best for you.”
“But I’ll be right here,” I exclaimed loudly.
Dean and Mom looked at each other.
“I don’t know,” Dean said slowly. “Your mom rules the roost around here. You know that, kiddo.”
Defeated, I slunk back down in my chair.
Bible study was even worse than I thought it would be. The rest of the people there were young – like teenagers – and I was obviously the oldest one. Even worse, some girl asked me which high school I went to because she’d “never seen me around.”
It was like my hot night in bed with Andrew and Victor was the most distant of distant memories.
At home, I crawled into bed and turned out the lights, with my door wide open (of course.) Mom and Dean stayed up watching old reruns of Family Matters and then around eleven, they finally went to bed. As quietly as I could, I pulled my laptop out of my bag and booted it up.
Without thinking too much, I wrote:
“Dear Andrew,
You were right. This is completely miserable, and it’s gotten even worse. I can’t stay here anymore. Were you serious about me being able to live with you?