The Girl Across the Street

The Girl Across the Street 21

I drag my feet all the way home but regardless, I get there nonetheless. I open the door and slink upstairs, trying to put off seeing my mother but I hear someone call, "Dylan!" I cringe but around the corner comes Cassidy. She leans against the doorframe and puts her hand on her hip.

"Mom went to go pick up dinner. She ordered Chinese food for us, she left a couple minutes ago so we have about twenty minutes." She steps away from the doorway and walks to the stairs, squinting her eyes. "What happened to your face?"

"Fight."

"You know your lip is bleeding right?" I nod. I had noticed while I was walking home when I kept tasting blood for whatever reason. "Well, we need to get you cleaned up because right now you look like crap."

"Thanks Cass." I say sarcastically, following her up the rest of the stairs.

Fifteen minutes later, my face is cleaned up and makeup'd. Cassidy did a really good job of covering the bruises that are forming on my face.

When my mom comes home she doesn't say anything about it so I hope that she didn't notice. She lays out the dinner and when she hands it to me, she quints hard at my face. "Dylan, why are you wearing makeup?"

Cassidy and I both sigh. "I got into a fight."

"Dylan Alexander Barnes I raised you better than that! I raised you to know better than to solve issues with fists! I don't even know what to do with you!" She shrieks. Her mood suddenly changes and she shakes her head. "I'm so disappointed in you. Dylan, your father and I taught you better."

"I know Mom. I didn't start it. He came and found me after detention and-"

"Detention?! When the hell did you get a detention?! You sir, you sir are never, ever leaving this house again! Fights and detentions, what's happened to you? All of the sudden in a week's time you go from a perfect student and a wonderful son to a delinquent?" My mother shakes her head, conflicting emotions running through her head.

"I was trying to stick up for someone and the teacher gave me a detention for disrupting and that guy was openly trashing both Kate and Emma to their faces and to my face. So I told him to back off and he didn't like that I did that do he basically jumped me after detention."

My mother's face twists from pride, to pity, to anger to disappointment again. "Honey, no matter the motives, you got a detention, openly lied to me about said detention I assume and you got into a fist fight."

My dad walks in the door and my mother calls him into the kitchen. She sends me to go wash my face while she and Cassidy greet my father and finish dishing up dinner.

When I enter the kitchen again, everyone is sitting at the table, waiting for me to begin eating. My dad sees my face, now covered in a few colorful bruises and chuckles a little. "I hope this is one of those 'you should see the other guy' moments." He jokes. My mother gives him a dirty look and he sobers up.

"I'll bet he has a matching face and a bit of a jaw issue now." My father claps his hands together but receives another look from my mother and frowns, shaking his head at me. When she turns her back however, he gives me a wink and a thumbs up, making Cassidy giggle.

Of course, my weekend was filled by two long days of trying to stay occupied while under house arrest. I finished all of my homework, wrote an essay for English due Friday and finished a math project not due for two weeks. Once I had finished all of the school work I could possibly bear, I cleaned my room, not a terribly time consuming task because I generally liked to keep it fairly neat. I then proceed to chat on LifeTyme with Kate.

Kate Manor: You're sure you can't escape for a little bit?

Dylan Barnes: Nah, Mom's been home all weekend so I can't escape. She went as far as calling Simon's and Nathan's parents.