Moving In With The Enemy

Chapter 3 ~ "I Can Handle It"

"So?" Mom asks as we pull into our subdivision. "How's Caleb?"

"He's good." I sigh, running my hands over my knees.

I still hadn't told her what I'd really done in that apartment this afternoon. I left this morning with the intention to meet a friend and I came back with a lease for a spare room in my bag. 

It's not that my parents couldn't handle that I was growing up, they respected that I was older. But living at home has really made that grown-up divide hard, they'd still ask me where I was going when I went out, what time I'd be back. Every time I brought up moving out, mom and dad would launch into a speech about "how expensive" it was and that I should wait to be done my undergrad.

I had a lot of money saved though, I'd originally planned on waiting until I had finished and then get a really nice apartment or maybe think about buying a car. But I'm really glad I never did, because now I had a lot more money to put towards moving out.

"He lives in that house on the corner there?" She asks and I nod.

"Yeah, with some friends." 

"What's his rent like?" She asks and I shrug.

"Somewhere in the ballpark of six-forty." I tell her, that was the piece I'd picked out in my quick skim of the lease. It was six-hundred-and-forty-three dollars a month, I also remembered Caleb telling me about that.

"That's so high." She sighs, turning onto our street. "It was much cheaper when I was a student."

"That's because you went to school in the eighties, tuition was only like two-thousand a year." I remind her, looking out the window. "Plus they're right close to campus and everything, and they live with all of their friends."

"That's fun and all, but you don't understand what a treat it is to come out of your undergrad debt-free." She insists, pulling into our driveway.

She always said that, debt-free was her argument for me staying home. I secretly knew this was just mom not wanting me to go, she liked having me home. Sometimes I swore I was her only friend.

"But....mom, you say this is worth it and I just don't think it is." I admit. "I never spend time with people my own age, I feel left out.......I just want to be like the other students."

"I know you do honey, but I think it's good to stay here." She insists. "Plus, you're almost done."

"Mom." I repeat and she furrows here eyebrows, parking the car. "I'm serious, I want to move out."

"I know you do, but you know how all of this is." She sighs, shaking her head. "I don't know if you're ready, you know how you get when you're stressed out."

When I was younger I used to get pretty intense panic attacks and mom and dad would have to help me calm down. I haven't had one in years though and I was sick of having it used against me.

"Mom, I'm twenty-one years old." I remind her. "I want to be an adult, I'm living at home in my childhood bedroom without a car and I want to be independent."

"I know you do honey, and if something good comes along maybe we can take a look at it." She sighs and I press my lips together.

"What if.....something good already came along?" 

"What do you mean?" She asks, furrowing her eyebrows and turns off the car.

"You know how Caleb's a year ahead of me in school?" I ask, opening my bag and digging through it.

"Yes." She answers, sounding weary.

"He's moving to New Jersey." I answer, pulling out the lease from my bag. "Their apartment is short a roommate and......he asked if I wanted it." I shrug, turning on the overhead light and unfolding the lease. "It's not bad in rent and-"