Seafoam //Completed//

Chapter 20

The house was cold while she stood in the middle of the dark living room. It felt unlived in, as if she hadn't just been gone a week, rather, asif no one had set foot in it in years. Even the smell had turned sour, the skeleton of what once was a home, rotting away abandoned.

 Ava had insisted Lulu stay with her longer, but she couldn't keep living off of her generosity. Two weeks had already passed since her father had disappeared and it was starting to show. Despite his increasing drunkenness, he was very good at keeping up with the bills and giving her money to buy the groceries they needed. Now, what little food was in the fridge had begun to rot and soon the power would be cut off and she would have to find a way to manage on her own.

She had used the emergency credit card her parents had equipped her with when she was fifteen to pay for the dress rental, and she would use it again to buy some groceries, but it wasn't a saving grace. Sooner or later, she'd be cut off from that too when payments would be due and not given.

Desperation was threatening to suffocate her and her head was spinning. Mentally, she cursed her father for leaving. What a coward he had been to just abandon her. They weren't a model family; she wasn't even sure he loved her, but he had always been there. They'd been a strange team, but they had depended on each other, in their own disparate way.

"What am I supposed to do, now?" she asked into the silence, her voice breaking.

On the mantel, a picture of her parent's smiling faces mocked her. They weren't yet married when that picture was taken; everything was right in the world for them, and Lulu hated them for it. She hated her mother for leaving her with her useless father and for having cancer and for dying. In a fit, she grabbed the picture frame and threw it as hard as she could against the opposite wall. The glass rained in chunks onto the floor and she only stared, trembling all over.

Before she could pick up the next frame, a picture of herself, blowing out the candles on a cake when she'd turned 3, her cellphone rang in her purse. Setting the frame back down, she walked over to the couch where her purse was and fished out her phone.

Matty's name flashed on the screen and she took a deep breath before answering.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Hey! Are you busy tonight? I thought we could hang out at Greer's and maybe catch a movie at your house later."

Greer's was a coffee shop near their school that usually had a poetry reading on the weekends, which Matty hated, but he was crazy about their cappuccinos. Since it was so close to school, they usually ran into kids from her class and tonight, she didn't feel like seeing anyone, but they hadn't hung out just them two in a while.

Bringing up a still trembling hand up to her forehead, she swallowed her 'no' and told Matty to pick her up at seven.

After they hung up, she stood staring at the phone in her hand. If she told him, he could help, but he would tell his parents. Matty liked rules, they kept him grounded. He wouldn't be able to keep her secret the way Ava was, and if he told his parents, they would call child protective services and who knew where the hell she would end up. No. She couldn't tell him no matter how much she wanted to.

Pushing the thought from her mind, she climbed the stairs up to her room to get ready.