One Day At A Time

Chapter Thirty-Seven: On The Tip Of Your Tongue

Ava strolls into the kitchen the following Sunday morning and Andy starts to interrogate her as soon as she sits down with a bowl of cereal in her hands.

He looks to her right-off-the-bat and asks in his sternest voice,
"Mom said you were home late! Where were you?"
"She was out with her friends, you idiot!" Anne snaps at him.

The dynamic of Anne having to shut Andy up in Ava's defense is a dynamic that Ava herself is incredibly grateful for.

"What were you all doing so late? Drugs? You know those are bad, right?" Andy questions.
Anne just laughs at him, a loud, wheezing laugh. "What's so funny?"
"It's funny that you think she'd be doing drugs! Where did you even get that from?"

There's cruel irony is the twin's bickering, irony that prompts Ava to interrupt both of them.
"I wasn't out doing drugs. I was just talking with my friends, that's all."
"Are you sure?" Andy says.
"Yes."

She'll tell him the truth when he's older, when his school stops telling him that weed is the bane of all evil.

And while that's technically lying, she doesn't feel too bad about it.
It's more a lie to keep his mind at ease.

Though, guilt about not telling her mom the truth does make her feel bad.
So, after breakfast, she gets herself dressed and steps out onto the porch, where Donna is watering the new flowers she'd bought for springtime with the hose.

"Hey, Mom." She starts. "Can I, um, talk to you about something?"
Donna twists the hose, turning it to a lower water pressure for a moment, so she can hear properly.
"Of course, what's on your mind?"

Ava pulls at the hem of her shirt.
"Well, I-I don't know if you could tell, but, but I was, uh-"
"High? Yes, sweetheart, I could tell. Was that what you were going to say?"

Ava's face is burning red. She nods her head.
"Yeah... I'm sorry. Are you mad?"

Donna looks at her daughter almost sympathetically.
"I'm not mad, but I'm not happy about it, either. But, you also told me that your other friends get high, so I was kind of expecting you to try it sooner or later. It's a part of being a teenager, doing stupid stuff with your friends." She laughs softly to herself, as if she's reminiscing on being a stupid teenager herself. "I'll let this time slide, but it's a one time thing, okay? I don't want you getting high all the time."

Ava will also forever be grateful for her mom being as cool as she is.
She's got a lot to be grateful for.

"Thank you. I won't do it again, I promise." She sighs, smiling with relief.

She hugs her mom before she goes inside with words in her mind that she wants to say.

A lot of words, a lot of words and a lot of thoughts.

But she doesn't say them.
She thinks about saying them and her tongue dries up.

She saves them for another day and goes back into her house.