Dissonance - Chapter 36

Sorry for the delay in posting.  I got pretty sick this week and it slowed everything down.

After telling Mr. Eaves to file, my first step was to call Chef. He’d put this all in motion and was paying for everything, so he deserved to know.

After I explained everything, including my reasoning for not waiting, Chef asked, “Are you sure about this, Charlie?”

“Yes. It isn’t getting better and it’s almost certainly going to get worse. It will be almost Christmas before anything happens, which considering how crazy things have gotten since I got home from the tour, is a lifetime. I’m not exaggerating or being a teen who thinks everything is immediate and dire. Things have gotten very bad, and they’re going to get worse. I can’t wait. I know you said you wanted me to take some time and really think it through, but I’m sure this is the right decision for me and I can’t afford to wait.”

“I’m not second-guessing you; I just want to make sure you’re prepared for this. I’ve already arranged everything with Arthur, so you should be all set. You aren’t alone in this, Charlie. We’re here to help if you need us.”

“Thanks, Chef. I don’t know how I’d …”

“It’s okay. Just keep your head down and make it through this. Things will probably get worse before they can start getting better, but I know you’ll be okay. Just remember to stay calm and think before you do anything. The person who can hurt your case the most is you.”

“I know, and I will.”

“Good.”

When I finished telling him, I told Mrs. Phillips, who essentially had the same reaction. She was a little disappointed that even after agreeing to take some time to think about it, I still went ahead and made the decision on that first phone call anyway, but she also understood my reasoning.

I felt like a weight had been lifted, even though nothing had really changed. Just knowing there was a path out and having the decision made was enough to take some of the pressure off. The weirdest part was, even though my entire life felt like it had changed, the rest of the world kept moving along.

I got to school the next morning, and everyone was just going about their day like nothing had happened. True, nothing had happened to anyone else, but I guess when you have a monumental shift in your life, it feels like the rest of the world should change with you.

Worse, the high school drama continued unabated. I got to the front steps of the school to find Rhonda in Sydney’s face, finger inches from her nose. To Sydney’s credit, she wasn’t backing down or flinching and looked pissed off instead of scared. Rhonda might have thought Sydney was some shrinking violet that she could threaten, but she wasn’t. Sydney might have been against fighting or breaking the rules, but she had a backbone and she wasn’t going to let anyone walk all over her.

Rhonda wasn’t alone this time. She had several girls with her, including Camille, who apparently hadn’t learned from her experiences at the end of last year and was back to being one of Rhonda’s groupies.

“…till we find you alone. One good ass kicking and you’ll find out why you shouldn’t chase after other girls’ leftovers.”

Sydney was pissed, and I thought she might break her rule and actually punch Rhonda, which with my luck, her dad would take as somehow being my fault.

“Why do you care who I date?” I asked. “You dumped me, remember? Actually, you screwed Aaron while we were still dating and then dumped me. Hell, you also slept with Harry. How sad is that, sleeping with a more pathetic version of Aaron. ”

“Doesn’t change the code. You don’t go out with another girl's ex,” Rhonda snarled back.

“Bullshit. How often do you break that rule? Hell, how many exes did Aaron have when you got on your back? If that was a rule, no one would date anyone. I don’t care what stupid idea you have in your head about needing to prove yourself so you can be queen bee or whatever, it doesn’t give you a right to talk to her like that.”

“Fuck you, Charlie. I wouldn’t have had to sleep with Aaron if you were more of a man.”

“Probably true, but if I’m such a sad sack, why do you feel the need to run off my new girlfriend? How sad does that make you?”

“I don’t care. What are you going to do, beat me up too?”

“No, but I could start talking to the other guys in conditioning class. I’ve never said anything against you to anyone, even as you’ve made up all kinds of shit about me to kiss up to Aaron’s old crew. How about I start talking about you?”

“Like they’d listen to you. No one likes you around here anyway.”

“Really? Because after that article in the paper I’ve had people constantly stopping to talk to me. You’re probably right though, Harry and his group won’t care about what I have to say about you. They only care about how good Harry said you were in bed. I’m sure they’d still be glad to date you, based on his endorsement.”

“Fuck you, Charlie.”

“You didn’t. That was the problem, wasn’t it?”

She turned and stormed off, her posse following in her wake. It was sad to see the direction she had decided to go in. She’d had potential last year to be a good person, and she’d thrown it all away in her quest to try to be queen bee.

“You didn’t have to do that, I could have dealt with her,” Sydney said.

“Yeah, but you looked like you were about to smack her in the face, and I couldn’t have you getting in trouble because Rhonda feels like she needs to make some kind of statement.”

“What’s her deal, anyway?”

“Like I said, she feels like she needs to make a statement. Since there’s a chunk of the school that really hates me, and they tend to be the ‘popular’ kids, she has to somehow explain away our relationship. I guess the easiest way for her is to make sure I never date anyone and disappear socially.”

“Well, I still appreciate the white knight bit, even if I didn’t need it,” Sydney said, leaning against me and wrapping her arms around my waist.

“Hey, you’re my girl. I can’t let someone take a shot at you without doing something.”

“I am your girl,” she said, giving me a squeeze before letting go and taking my hand so we could walk to class. “Although, as your girl, I’m wondering why I had to hear from my dad that the windows of your car were smashed in.”

“That was Harry, I’m almost positive, but he was smart enough to break the camera pointing at that section of the parking lot before doing it. Sorry, I meant to call you, but it’s been a hellish weekend.”

“Stuff with your dad?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about it here. Call me later tonight and I’ll tell you about it.”

“Okay,” she said, squeezing my hand.

I knew anything I told Sydney she’d keep to herself, but the halls had ears and I didn’t need this gossip spreading around. I’d barely reconciled myself with it, and hadn’t talked to anyone but Kat.

“Something surprising did happen with my windows getting smashed in, though,” I said, changing the subject slightly. “After writing up the report and everything, your dad offered me a ride to the Blue Ridge.”

“See, I told you he wasn’t like you thought. He’s a good guy. You just have to give him a chance.”

“We’ll see,” I said, but I knew how important it was to her that I liked her dad. “It’s a good sign at least.”

She was beaming at me as I dropped her off at her class. I knew she was kind of a daddy’s girl, and I appreciated my liking him was important to her, but I still wasn’t sold that he and I wouldn’t come to a head. Not with everything that was going on. Still, I did need to try.

For her sake.

It was as if there was a flyer or some kind of notice to all the people who hated me that I was having a hard time, the high school bullshit continued after I dropped Sydney off at her class. I needed to swing by my locker, which was near my first class and had just gone around the corner when I saw Harry by my locker, looking really guilty, leaning in close to cover up my lock with his body. I knew he was at my locker, because his locker was in the short row of lockers just outside the athletic department, as were all of his friends’.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked, coming up behind him.

Harry, dumb as a stump as always, practically jumped out of his skin and spun around to face me. He’d been looking left and right constantly, I guess trying to see if the coast was clear, and somehow missed me walking right up to him, because he’d forgotten there was an entire hallway at his back and other people could see him.

“I’m not at your locker. I’m just waiting here?”

I looked left and then right, dramatically, before saying, “For who? None of your friends are over here, you have history first period all the way on the other side of school, and the bell is about to ring. Who the hell are you waiting for?”

I know it was weird that I kind of knew Harry’s schedule, but he was one of the people I tried to avoid, if only to avoid the bullshit that came with being in the same vicinity as him. Besides, he had a history with Coach Bryant, and even Mr. Packer wasn’t a big enough asshole to put me within a mile of the Coach, considering what happened the last time we saw each other.

“Fuck you, Nelson. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“If you screwed with my locker, you do. Or you could explain away the foot I’m about to shove all the way up your ass.”

“I’m sick of you threatening shit. If you want to throw down, I’m ready. All your fancy Asian shit isn’t going to keep me from giving you the beating you need.”

That was a surprise. Harry had found a pair of balls lying around somewhere. I’d be impressed if I had the time to deal with his nonsense. I wasn’t particularly worried about Harry actually hurting me and the odds of him laying a hand on me were so slim as to be non-existent, but I didn’t need the hassle that would follow it. Unfortunately, my bright idea of challenging him to keep him from bothering me was blowing up in my face. I couldn’t back down either, or he’d take that as a sign that he’d won, and things would get ten times worse with him.

The real question was, which was more of a pain? Dealing with Mr. Packer and suspension or dealing with an emboldened Harry? I didn’t get the chance to find out either way. As we started to buck up one another and things were clearly about to go down, a teacher came out of their room to look down the hall, probably to see if any kids were still out of their classrooms, since the second bell had rung and everyone was supposed to be in class now.

“What are you two doing?” she called out, starting our way. “You two, get to class.”

“Next time,” Harry said, leaning in close and saying it in what I guess was supposed to be an ominous whisper, but which only sounded relieved to me.

“Whenever you want, princess,” I said.

I swear the idiot almost stopped and threw a punch then and there, in front of a teacher. He managed to get a hold of himself, but just barely. Fist-balled, he stopped, turned, made a move toward me, noticed the teacher, and then marched away, muttering under his breath.

“You too,” she said to me.

“I just need to get a book out of my locker,” I said, pointing at the locker in front of me.

“Hurry up,” she said, going back into her classroom.

I grabbed my lock, and noticed it was busted. He must have had a screwdriver or something, and had tried to pop the wheel off. I didn’t know anything about locks, but even I knew that wouldn’t get the lock open. What it did, however, was break the lock and make it impossible to get into my locker. He’d probably envisioned stealing my textbooks or maybe planting weed or something in my locker so I would get in trouble, but this was equally annoying.

I could get the janitor to cut my lock off, but then I’d have to carry all my stuff with me until I got a new lock after school, which was also annoying. I only had about a third of the books I needed for the day, so I’d have to borrow or read off others' books all day, which was going to be annoying. Thankfully, he’d done this in the morning, so at least I had all of my homework on me and didn’t have to worry about that.

Still, this was one of the last annoyances I needed. Maybe homeschooling wasn’t a bad idea, if it got rid of all the high school bullshit. Okay, I didn’t mean that, I was just sick of high school, or at least high schoolers.

***

Thursday, I had a text message from Mr. Eaves telling me the petition had been filed that morning and my parents would get the summons by Monday at the latest. I’d spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday after school on the phone with Mr. Eaves’ paralegal answering a crazy number of questions and going over each of the run-ins I’d had with my dad, and problems caused by him, since he returned. I tried to be as open and honest as possible and included anything I could think of, but it had been draining to relive each of those events over and over again, as the paralegal tried to get every drop of detail he could. I think he was also trying to poke holes in my stories, even though he said he was just putting together a timeline.

There were a lot of ‘follow-up’ questions and clarifications, usually ten or twenty minutes after we’d switched subjects, that I was pretty sure were meant to see if my story changed at all. I didn’t blame them for that. If there was a problem, they’d want to know about it now instead of being surprised in court. I, or at least Chef, was paying them to be thorough and get me the emancipation, so I could at least trust them to be doing it right.

I’d tried to talk to Chef, the day before, about getting on a payment plan or starting to work out how I was going to repay him for what he’d already spent hiring Mr. Eaves, but he refused to talk about it. He said he wanted me to focus on getting through the court process and we then could talk about it once everything was done. I admired Chef a lot, and I knew he’d always have my back; but one of the things I was learning in this process, is never to leave any of my debts unpaid, because that would give someone a hold over me. I never wanted to give anyone the ability to have control over me again.

The text message was more than just an FYI, however. It meant that, in the next day or so, Mom was going to find out about the emancipation, and I believed it was going to absolutely crush her. I was disappointed in her, angry at her, and sad for the way our relationship was now, but I still loved her very much and wanted to soften the blow of this as much as possible for her, if I could.

“Charlie?” Mom asked in a hushed tone like she always did when she was answering her personal cell phone at work.

Normally, she let calls go straight to voicemail, but I knew she saw my number, and considering how we left things on Friday, I know she’d probably been fretting about me since then.

“Mom, after you get off work, could you come by the Phillips house? I’ll make sure I’m there. I need to talk to you,” I said, and then realized I should clarify. “Just you. I don’t want Dad there. I need to talk to you.”

“Okay,” she said, sounding relieved. “I’m so glad you called me. I know things are bad, but we’ll work this out, I promise.”

There was absolutely no way I could reply to that which wouldn’t make this harder. I didn’t know what she’d do if she found out about the emancipation before we could talk, but if she mentioned why I wanted to see her to Dad, he’d force her to bring him along. I wanted to warn her, but I knew for a fact that any confrontation with him over my emancipation would turn violent.

“Can you come by before you go to your other job?” I asked, not wanting to have to wait to tell her until late that night.

“Yes. I’ll let them know I’ll be late.”

“Thank you. I’ll see you tonight,” I said, and hung up.

I texted Mrs. Phillips and told her what was going on, that I needed to talk to Mom, and that I wanted to do it alone. She said she’d pick Kat up from practice and the two of them would go out to dinner so that I would have privacy. I felt bad kicking her out of her own home, but I didn’t want to do this in a public place and I couldn’t do it with anyone else around, not even my own friends.

After getting everything arranged, I went home and tried to do my homework. Eventually, I gave up and packed everything away. I was on top of my homework enough that I could put off tonight’s homework a day. I just knew my head wasn’t in it, since all I could think about was how much this was going to crush Mom, and that I would have to redo anything I did now anyway as a result. Instead, I just sat there, staring at the ceiling, going over and over the conversation, or how I thought the conversation might go in my head. I knew I was winding myself up, but it was all I could do.

Finally, the doorbell rang. I felt my stomach knot up, and for a second I thought I was going to puke right there, but the moment passed and I went to let Mom in. She rushed to give me a tight hug as soon as the door opened, and I felt the knot return.

“Let’s go have a seat,” I said, my throat dry.

“Charlie, I’m really sorry it’s gotten this bad, but I know we can work through this and get our family back to what it was.”

We sat in the same spots we had on Friday, and I took a deep breath.

“Mom, I don’t want our family back the way it was. Our family was doing terribly. It wasn’t until Dad got locked up that things actually started to get better. I know you don’t like thinking about it, but Dad made our life hell. He hit both of us, drank away all of our money, and made our lives a living hell.”

“He isn’t drinking anymore,” Mom said, defensively.

“But he’s still hitting you. He’s still trying to hit me. And he’s definitely making my life a living hell. I’ve tried Mom, I really have. I’d hoped you’d come to your senses or somehow the court would figure out a way to retry him and this whole joke would come to an end. It’s clear that won’t happen. I’ve had enough.”

“What are you saying, Charlie?”

“I asked you to come here because I wanted you to hear this from me, face to face. I’ve filed for emancipation.”

“What?” she said, clutching her chest, her voice wavering.

Her expression was the same one she had when Dad hit her. That shocked but resigned look. It broke my heart. I almost backed off then, thinking I should call Mr. Eaves and tell him ‘never mind’. This is what Chef warned me about. I felt sick to my stomach.

“I’ve tried, Mom. I really have. I love you more than anything, but as soon as Dad showed up, you gave up on being a parent. “

“That’s not fair, Charlie. Yes, things are different with your father here, but I’ve never stopped trying to do my best for you.”

“Last year you lectured me all the time about staying in school, getting a degree, and not following in Dad’s footsteps. Now you’re saying that maybe it isn’t a bad idea to drop out of school or skip college. Last year, you wouldn’t let me give you my entire paycheck from the Blue Ridge or all the money I made playing gigs. I had to twist your arm so that you would let me give you half. Now you’re okay with Dad raiding the band's bank account to buy himself a guitar. If things keep going the way they are now, I’m not going to have a career orbe in school. And that doesn’t even consider all of the violence. You just let him …” I said, and paused, letting out a sigh and putting my head in my hands. “I didn’t ask you here to argue with you. I just wanted you to hear from me that this is happening.”

“Charlie, there has to be a better way to do this.”

“Is there? I’ve been trying to find one, and I can’t. He’s backed me into a corner, and you haven’t stopped him. If there’s a better way, tell me. I’m listening.”

“I don’t know, but I know there has to be one. You’re a kid, Charlie. You need us.”

“You’re right, I do. I need you to be parents and make decisions in my best interest. Dad sees me as a big bag of money with a big cartoon dollar sign on the side, or a pathway back into his dream. I asked you to make him stop, and you haven’t.”

“I talked to him.”

“And that’s all. Last year if I told you I was dropping out of school to pursue music full-time, you would have hit the roof. You would have called the police if you thought it would keep me out of the Blue Ridge. Now, you just talk to him, and it does no good. Do you know he went to the Blue Ridge and talked to my bandmates about us touring full-time? He hasn’t stopped and you are just not capable of stopping him. Hell, he hits you and you still welcome him back.”

“It’s not that easy, Charlie. He’s my husband, and I love him.”

“And I’m your child. I know it sucks, but you had a decision to make, and you made it. You’ve chosen him over me. You’ve always told me choices have consequences. You made yours, and this is the consequence. I’m really sorry it’s come to this, but until you break free of him, we just can’t be a family. He’s evil, and I won’t let him destroy my life like he’s destroying yours.”

“I’m not going to sit here and let you lecture me,” she said.

It almost made me want to laugh. Dad slaps her across the face and then spends ten minutes telling her why it’s her fault she ‘made him hit her,’ but I try to get her to see why she should get rid of him, and she can’t sit there and hear me lecture her on why she shouldn’t let him hit her.

“Then go. I just wanted to let you know, because you’re going to get a summons in the next few days. I’m sorry it’s come to this.”

She got up and stormed to the front door, opening it and stopping on the other side.

“You don’t have to do this, Charlie,” she said, looking back at me.

She’d regained her composure, opting for anger over sadness. It blew my mind. She’d stand up to me but she wouldn’t stand up to Dad when he hit her. She was never going to change. It made me sad; but if anything, it made me more certain than ever that this was the right choice.

“Yes, I do,” I said, closing the door.