Weekend Fiction Break: The Fight

This is the part of the show where I post my own fiction.

Mom took my Metallica CD the other day and broke it in half in front of me to prove a point. Luckily she didn’t know I have it loaded on my iPod anyhow. So it’s not like I was heartbroken. I pretended to get upset, just in case she got wise and realized that it didn’t bother me and start asking too many questions. She still needs my help getting onto this marvelous thing called the internet (“I’ll learn how to use it one day,” she always says when I get annoyed at showing her how to double click on the icon and type in an address.)

So chances are good she has no freaking clue that CDs are irrelevant anymore except for the cover art that comes along in the package. She probably thinks the thing attached to my headphones is a Walkman complete with cassette tapes. That would totally be Mommy Dearest.

Back to the reason she broke my CD. Which I did buy with my own money, thank you very much. “And where does that money come from?” she screamed in my face.

“Dad,” I said, even though it isn’t like I keep each bill separate between what he gives me, what Mom gives me, and what I earn working at Suck-Mart. I just said it because she hates it when I bring up Dad.

“You think you can listen to this kind of music in my house?”

I shrugged at this one. We’ve gone over it before. Dad doesn’t care what I do as long as I don’t bug him when he’s spending time with Blondie du Jour.

“Well, you can’t.”

Like I said, I already knew that I had the music on my iPod, so whatever she was about to do or say next really didn’t matter.

“And you won’t be listening to this again.”

My mom, who most people aside from me know as a loving, caring, gentle person, took the CD and slammed it down on the side of my dresser so it bent. Then, viciously, she cracked it in half the rest of the way and I swear to God she looked happy. I mean, she wasn’t smiling or anything, but some part of her looked pleased with herself.

I started yelling, like I said to throw her off the track, but I also got a little hot at seeing her look happy. I said a number of things that I won’t repeat (although I don’t regret them). She said a number of things I won’t repeat either, although I can tell you that she probably regretted them. She always apologizes to me after we fight, because part of being extremely and excessively Catholic is feeling guilty for everything. Even yelling at your kids. Even when they have major attitudes, like me, and blame everything on their parents getting divorced. The fact that Mom got divorced makes her even guiltier.

So after she left my room, I played the Metallica CD she'd just broken on my iPod not because I wanted to listen to it at the moment, but because I could. Around dinner, came Apology Time, and I like usual I grunted in response, and when her apology started wandering around to the topic of Dad, I cut her off like usual and said “Yeah, whatever, I’m sorry too,” even though I really wasn’t. She wanted me to forgive her for divorcing Dad, and I am fifteen years old, not a freaking saint. Maybe when I’m older we’ll have this emotional reunion where I’ll say “I forgive you Mom for divorcing my father who cheated on you ONE TIME with a random stranger because he was drunk. Thank you for not forgiving him. Thank you for making me question the foundation of everything I believe about EVERYTHING. Thank you for teaching me how to be a STRONG independent woman by raising me yourself Monday-Friday and every other weekend. Thank you that I have two Christmases, two Thanksgivings and two birthdays. Thank you that I will be in freaking therapy all of my life. How could I ever repay you?"

But I doubt it.

Upstairs, mom is calling for me. Because she wants to check her email and the internet is broken. She thinks. Could I just help her this once?