One Night ✔️

Chapter Fourteen

For the next week or so, I spent a lot of time on my own. It wasn't that I was avoiding Joseph or Alex for that matter, I just needed a clear headspace to think. Eating lunch in Klein's room helped and I caught up on the work I let accumulate. Shocking, I know.

When I wasn't in school, I was up in my room either reading or sleeping. A spiritual vacation was what I needed, some time away from the chaos of my world and I made sure to give myself that. Regarding my mother, my goal was clear. This life was my own but for so long I deprived myself of the amazing luxuries it had to offer. Including the affection of a person who cared about me, and it was all because I feared my mother. I was just a pawn in her game and I could have either let her continue to have control over or learn how to play the game... 

Or better yet, not play at all.

Joseph, on the other hand, well, he was an entirely different story. I didn't realize how much of my time was spent with him or how the majority of my days consisted of us studying or venturing off in the evenings together until he was gone. He was no longer lighting up my phone with texts asking me random questions like, "what's your favorite sound?" Or, "you know the phrase 'best thing since sliced bread?' Well, what do you think was best before sliced bread?"

He wasn't sending me random smileys or memes from his favorite page on Instagram and god, did I miss that. I missed him. I knew what I wanted to do next, but I needed a little encouragement. A pep talk.

~*~

Thursday at school.

"Sounds like a case of a rebellious teen," Klein commented, leaning on the front of his desk.

"No, the rebellious teen stage is like fourteen through sixteen. I'm eighteen and I just want my own life!"

He looked at me with his arms folded across his chest. "Have you tried reasoning with your mom?"

"Yes, and the conversation always ends with me being a 'disrespectful child' I don't get it." I paced between the classroom door and the edge of Klein's desk. "She can hold me hostage in our own home and control my life, but when I want to express my feelings I'm suddenly disrespectful?? Bullshit!" I shouted, slamming my hand on the desk in front of me.

"Whoa now, language, Miss Martinez. It's still school hours," he said, tapping his watch.

"I'm sorry... I don't normally swear," Feeling hopeless, I slouched into the desk I had just assaulted.

"I won't tell you that you need to conjure up a manipulative plan to get what you want, but maybe try to catch her on a good day?"

"There's no such thing. She's always waiting to pounce."

"Then take that risk. Tell her straight up what you want while being respectful of course, and she'll respect you. She may give you what you're asking for and more."

I nodded. But he just didn't know my mother the way I did.

"As for Vasquez... don't let him go."

"What? How do you —"

"Every time you present in front of the class, his eyes are glued to you. Kinda like the way my eyes are glued to the tv screen during the Super Bowl." He pretended to throw a football across the room and taunted the imaginary crowd watching him. That was why he was my favorite teacher.

"Or the way my eyes are glued to Amelia when she's doing the simplest of things like reading or fixing up her hair. That boy hangs off your every word."

He smiled warmly at his thoughts while my mind flew away to another place. A place I'd been previously terrified to be in, only this time I felt like things could really be okay. Instead of suppressing the feeling in my chest, I wanted it to keep growing. I wanted to know where it'd lead me. Luckily, I ran into the topic of conversation himself later in the day. He approached me as I left my last period class.