“What…what is going on here? Who are you?” Rebecca Cruise yells at the teenage boy scrambling to get up from her daughter's bed to stand at attention. Her eyes stray to her daughter, clothed in a tube top and shorts, lying on the bed, her hands covering her face. “Laura?”
The sixteen-year-old girl uncovers her face and drops her hand on the bed dramatically, rolling her eyes. “Mom! Please.”
“I-I…uh, I'm really sorry, ma'am. My name is Zach—” The boy tries to explain but stops short at the look on Rebecca's face.
“You know what? Get out of my house. Right now before I call the cops.”
Zach glances at a shocked Laura, nods at Rebecca, picks up his backpack and quickly exits the room. Rebecca follows after him to ensure he leaves the house through the front door. Laura follows after with a pout.
Once the door clicks shut, Rebecca spins on her heel to face her daughter. “How dare you?”
“Mom, please stop. What are you doing? He's my friend—”
A sharp crack pierced the air, echoing in the ears of mother and daughter. Laura's hand is on her left cheek which is quickly turning red, tears pooling in her eyes. Rebecca blanches in horror at her own reflex motion.
“I hate you,” Laura whispers and runs upstairs to her room. Rebecca spends the next hour pacing her living room and ruminating on the drama that just took place.
A similar scene many years ago floods her mind. She'd just opened the window of her room and pushed her boyfriend out when her Mama barged into the room. They'd argued and she sent her packing out of the house that night.
Rebecca pleaded but her mother wouldn't hear a thing. She stomped out of the house with a backpack but not before saying, “I hate you and wish you were not my mama.”
She relished the look of hurt on her mama's face as she shut the door. Her boyfriend couldn't accommodate her because his parents were stern and wouldn't tolerate such an arrangement. After moving from one friend to the other and almost starving, she realised the errors of her way and begged her mama to return home.
“Apologise for the last words you uttered before you left,” her mama insisted.
In tears, she did so and the woman embraced her with so much love. Rebecca vowed to teach her daughter right if God ever blessed her with one. He did and Laura was turning out just like her.
She sighs and kneads her temples to ward off the migraine that is slowly looming in her head. Then her phone rings. “Hello? Yes, this is she.” Rebecca gasps as the voice on the other line informs her of an accident and to hurry to the hospital.
She grabs her car keys and races out of the apartment. Getting to the hospital, she almost bursts into tears seeing her daughter lying in the bed, her arm and leg wrapped in casts.
The silly girl was fine one moment and the next she was in the hospital! Rebecca bites down on her hand to stop the tears from falling.
Laura slowly opens her eyes to see her mother in the room. She starts to cry, loud sobs that wrack her body. Rebecca quickly sits on the bed and kisses her forehead. “I'm so sorry, mom. I shouldn't have said those terrible things before I left the house…”
“Shhh…it's alright. I'm sorry too for hitting you.”
Mother and daughter embrace each other in reconciliation.
Image credit: Elina Fairytale
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