Choose

Day Seven: Give and Take

Today’s Prompt: Write a post based on the contrast between two things — whether people, objects, emotions, places, or something else.  Today’s twist: write your post in the form of a dialogue.

 

Connie had just returned home after a stressful day at school. She knew she should have studied for the Biology test. She had meant to study for the Biology test. Early that day, sitting – staring at the blank test paper as the minutes slowly ticked by – she really wished she had studied more and gamed less the night before. She had willed herself to remember even one word that would make some semblance of sense for the answer. Nothing came. And then there was the ongoing drama on the school bus. While her stomach was starting to knot just thinking about it, a knock came on her bedroom door.

In walked her dad. Whether it was the fact that her dad rarely came up to her room, or the scowl on his face, Connie sat up in bed sensing the stressful day was long from over.

“Did you tell your mother what I said earlier today?” He asked.

Her heart began to pound as she lied, “No. Of course not. No.”

“That’s not what I heard!”

“I don’t know what your talking about. She must of heard it from someone else.” Fear gripped Connie’s 14 year old heart. She had told her mom what her dad had said because she was upset and didn’t know where else to turn. It wasn’t her mom’s fault she wasn’t home when her dad came in from the shop. Grandma had needed a ride to the doctor.  Mom wasn’t the lazy, selfish person he said she was. Just because mom wasn’t right there when he wanted her to be, he had gone off on another tirade.

“Don’t lie to me, child! I know it was you.”

Mom must have heard the commotion as her frail frame appeared in the doorway.  “Connie, the truth.”

Feeling betrayed, Connie weighed her options and quietly said, “Yes, I told her.

“I told you not to tell her! Look at what you’ve done. You are ruining our marriage. You understand you are responsible, don’t you?” He bellowed.

The sobs deepened in Connie’s chest.  The room was spinning faster and faster. What could she say? What could she do?

Her father continued, “You need to choose right here and right now.  It’s mom or it’s me. What is your choice?” –

Her mom just stood there at the end of her bed, like a statue – unable to reach out and comfort Connie.

His voice was loud now. “I said, CHOOSE!”

The sun was sinking and the room was darkening. No one turned on a light.  Connie thought, “How can a child choose between the two people who gave her life? What parent would ask this of their teenager?” It was as if they wished to rip her in two and in doing so destroy all that she was. For if they hated each other so much, how could they love her – the result of that love.  Wasn’t the core of her makeup half of his DNA and half of hers? At least she learned that much in biology.  She laid, alone, sobbing uncontrollably.  At what point her parents left her room, she had no idea.