What Comes After | ✔️

Chapter 23

September 22

I'm going to tell the truth tomorrow. Today wasn't a good day, and it's too late to confess today, so I'm going to do it tomorrow.

I got confronted by May right in the morning, as soon as I was forcefully awoken. "What is the tape doing on the axe? Why isn't it burned?"

I rolled over and tried to ignore her because she was only making me more stressed and anxious about telling the truth to Mom and Dad. But she ripped the comforter off my bed, and I groggily grumbled, "You were supposed to stay awake."

"Well it's not like you had to do laundry all day," she replied. "So why did you not get the plan done?"

"I couldn't, okay?" I replied. "Anyways, I'm telling Mom and Dad the truth today."

"Then go tell them right now."

"Not right now," I said. "You know how Mom and Dad are like in the morning, especially without any coffee since they used the last of the instant coffee mixture yesterday."

"Fine," she said with a loud sigh. "You're telling them this afternoon. Promise me?"

"Promise," I said, at the moment being truthful because I was going to tell them about the axe situation. I just needed to work up the courage and faith that everything was going to be just fine if I told them.

Unfortunately, life got in the way of that because the world is just like that.

Dad was really grumpy from last night, possibly because he didn't get much sleep. I'm wondering if he's still having nightmares about the ocean and the teens on the beach that were washed away at twilight. Dad acted like everything was fine the day after it happened, and he never talked about it ever because he wanted to stay strong for us. Or maybe it's because he's bad at being emotional.

Either way, he started getting pretty snappy and authoritarian in the morning. First, he got annoyed at Mira for putting the cups in the wrong drawer. Then, he got mad at Mom for disappearing the shovel that he was going to use to clean the rooftop (Eventually, later on today, we'd find it exactly where Mom said it was, just buried under a bunch of other tools). The last big argument he had was with May, which just had to rope me in.

"Where is my jacket? The one with the snowflake on it" Dad asked My as he paced around and threw clothes out from the closet. "I know that it was in the laundry yesterday, so where did you put it?"

"I don't know," May said. "Maybe you should do your own laundry."

"Can you just find it?" he said, clearly irritated before muttering, "Why is everyone being so frustrating today?"

"Just look in the drawers," she said.

"Just get up and work," Dad said before going onto a fairly unjustified rant. "I've been doing all the maintenance of the greenbox, chopping of the wood, boiling of the water day in and out while you've just been sitting here. So get up!"

"Why don't you just get another jacket?" I very reasonably suggested, with May saying, "Yeah."

"Because I need this jacket," Dad said. "And you need something to do instead of sitting down and doing nothing. I'm going to teach you how to use some tools tomorrow, so that you can man up and do some actual repair work at home. And May, I want you to start looking. Now!"

Dad stormed out of the room, and May groaned before looking at me. "What is up with Dad? He's acting literally like a teenager."

"Mid-life crisis," I replied.

"More like end-life crisis," May muttered to herself before turning to me. "Remember. You have to tell them the truth today. Seeing as how Dad has been acting all day, he'll probably be awake all night being angry for absolutely no reason at all."