Elliot - Chapter 19

When I opened my eyes Elli was still clutching me, and we were lying on the concrete at the back of the school. It looked like late afternoon, with the sun peeking over the rooftops of the houses behind our school. We walked home without saying a word.
When we finally reached my house, Elli turned to look at me front-on. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Okay. Bye, Connor.”
I looked at her, and she leaned in to kiss me. Just lightly, but she still kissed me.
I walked to my front door and entered to meet a familiar scene.
“Mum, Dad!” I said. “You guys aren’t supposed to be home for…” I lifted my hand to check my watch, but I realised the screen had smashed when I’d fallen to the ground, after being beaten up by Sean.
Their anger-slash-shock-slash-fear about their son probably worsened by far when they saw me enter, with my face bloody and bruised. I limped over to the table where they were sitting. My leg was still healing from “flying” the other week.
I sat down. Nobody said anything for a while. Then my father spoke.
“We aren’t happy with you, Connor,” he said, his voice grave.
And they could have just told me that they weren’t happy with me, but instead they dragged it out. They wanted to say all this stuff about never being at home, going crazy, work suffering and phone calls from the school.
And then there was “that girl”.
“That girl” seemed to come into it a lot. I guess they thought that somehow Elli had influenced me and convinced me to wag school and run around out of control and get beaten up. And, come to think of it, Elli was the reason for most of it.
But really, what were they going to do about it if she was? They couldn’t just stop me from seeing her.
When I voiced this, it was the first thing I had said for a while, and they both looked kind of shocked at my retaliation.
My mother’s tone changed when she spoke next. “Connor, we’re just worried about you. We fear that this is really affecting your studies and that you might not be able to catch up again after this.”
I stared at the table. The dark brown grains seemed to have manoeuvred themselves so they looked like a love heart. I had never noticed that before.
“Why would you do this to yourself?” My dad asked me. “Things were going so well for you.”
I stared at him. “Things weren’t going well at all!” I exclaimed. “Before Elli came, I was a loner. I spent my lunchtimes in the library and I only liked school because it meant I was learning, but all the time I wanted to be at home, away from that hell.”
“But your work was perfect. You were a straight-A student in everything. Now you’re getting Cs and Ds and some Bs if you’re lucky. But the As have disappeared, Connor. And so has our trust in you,” my dad said to me. “You’re never at home and we don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t think it’s fair on either of your parents that you’re being so selfish and sacrificing your future. And for what? A girl?”
I stood up.
“First of all, Elli is not just “a girl”. She’s…different. She listens to me. She cares. And you didn’t have to do anything like that. I don’t need you to do anything for me any more. I can look after myself, you know.”
I turned around and headed for the door.
“And don’t bother waiting up for me. It’s just an inconvenience for you.”
Then I slammed it. Hard.
It hurt to yell at them like that, but at the time it felt good. I guess I’m just an angst-y teenager. I need to let off steam like that. But all my life, I had let them tell me what to do. I had been the good little boy. I had gone home and finished all my homework on the first night I got it because they wanted me to.
I just wanted them to know that I am my own person and that I can look after myself. They shouldn’t be monitoring their son’s every move.
Months later, during my final exams, I came to a realisation that I needed my parents, no matter how much I loved Elli or how much I hated their constant badgering about grades and school and homework. I discovered that no girl was ever going to replace the kind of love you receive from your parents, even if she was as special as Elli. But this was still to come.