Pencils & Polaroids

26: big-sized egos

I think I seized the wrong day. 

That's the best conclusion I could come up with after pacing the massive green yard with mowed grass blades occasionally brushing my legs in the course of five minutes. My mother once told me that I don't always do the wrong thing but when I do, it's the wrongiest of all the wrongs that ever wronged. 

After replaying the conversation I had, I'm certain that my mind was turned off. I might not be proud of the things I spat out in a fit of rage. Especially the ones about Jack Weston. I mean, it's bad enough to badmouth someone's father, but not having seen the man even in a picture makes it worse. If I at least knew how he looked, I'd have cast him a telepathic apology. 

But this is as good an argument as Ross and Rachel's 'We Were On A Break'. Just because I know I was wrong, it doesn't debar the fact that so was everyone else in the room. Archer spoke way more provoking things for a longer time. My father, who hasn't spoken to me for over an ear gave a blind eye to my harassment. And Annabeth, who pretended to be helpless and vulnerable in front of her son (because no mother is truly helpless unless she chooses to be), should've known better not to invite me over. Ever. 

I agree the negatively raging comeback needed stopping. Slapping me alone, however, was not a well-thought solution. A good speed breaker to the building-up fight? Maybe. But a just solution? Terrible choice. I'm sure my father must be repenting it now while he paces back and forth in his study just the way I'm doing on his lawn.

My cheek doesn't sting as much as my heart does. Ironically, it doesn't feel like my father put a lot of force into hitting me. It just seemed like he did. Or I've grown used to all kinds of pain by now. 

"Your father's ordered you to clean the table as a consequence of your actions." I hear Archer's voice even before I hear the front door open. 

I make it a point to keep my back turned to him. "Let me guess, you got a free victim pass? Bloody hand and all that." 

"I cleaned my side of the table." His words make me genuinely surprised. So surprised that I have nothing more to speak to him. Not that I ever wanted to but with guys like Archer Weston, it's primal to get the last word in every argument. It instills a sense of victory. "Don't you think you're taking it a little too far?" 

He's stepping out of the door, then the porch, and I finally hear him standing beside me. "Don't you think you're trying to control my life a little too much?" 

"Believe it or not, I'm doing what's best for you." 

What even? Am I supposed to be grateful for his harassment? Why, God, are you making such aggressive and controlling men? 

"Don't." I shake my head. "You're nobody to do anything for me." 

His raspy breathing imparts he's getting angry again. I'm not scared of him. Not anymore. I've reached a point where I couldn't lose anything anymore. And he's witnessed it all. 

"This is your problem. You're stubborn, immature, and so competitive, you can't see how much you're lacking plot right now."

This is heights. "Ravenford has been my dream long before our families merged. I have worked my ass off to be able to land a scholarship because as you so rightfully reminded me this entire dinner, I am not privileged. You haven't been in my life long enough to know this so with all due respect, which is none, I'm warning you not to come in between this scholarship and me again." 

"Hmm," he declares unaffected by my desperation to convey a point. "Seeing you want something so bad only makes me want to push it further away. It's bad enough that I'm seeing you on every other holiday, I don't want to spend the rest of my two years in college having you as a junior."