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The blunt is quickly taken from between her fingers, passing around the group until I lose track of it. I don’t care. All I care about is my daughter being safe inside my car, so I can tear her a new one for scaring me.
“Get your ass in the car now,” I say, my voice calm and controlled as Deja glares at me.
“I’m having fun.” Though she looks like she’s trying to stand her ground, there’s a quiver to her bottom lip. She knows she messed up, but she is trying to save face in front of her friends.
Typical teenager,I think, shaking my head as disappointment swamps me.Too bad she’ll not be getting her own way with me. At least, not tonight.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” I say slowly, pointing a finger toward the car. “Get your ass in the car. Now.”
Deja’s bottom lip quivers again, a small crack in her otherwise icy exterior. Her eyes are hard as she tries to stare me down. But for once, my daughter isn’t winning the argument. Not when she’s being reckless and endangering herself.
After another moment of silence, Deja rises to her feet, her head held high, and stomps to the car. I follow her, not saying a word as we drive away.
“Mom,” Deja says, her voice soft as she curls into herself in her seat. “Are you mad?”
I laugh, gripping the steering wheel and shaking my head. I press my lips together for a few moments, trying to keep myself from saying something I can’t take back later.
She’s an angry and upset teenager who has no sense of stability right now,I remind myself before taking a deep breath. There are so many things I want to say to her, but I don’t know where to start. I wish I could understand what she’s feeling, but she won’t open up to me.
Am I mad? Absolutely.
“Mad doesn’t even begin to cover what I’m feeling right now. You need to be quiet until we get home. I don’t want to start fighting right now and say something I’ll regret.”
I glance at her for a moment, seeing a scared little girl instead of the headstrong teenager that usually sits in her place. For a second, my own fear and anger fade away. I want to pull my little girl in as close as I can and tell her everything will be alright. I want to take away her fears and save her from the dark spiral of her mind.
Instead, I pull into our driveway and walk into the house, stopping in the dining room and waiting for her to take a seat. Deja doesn’t lift her eyes from the table as she swipes a tear from her cheek. When she looks up, there’s no longer regret in her eyes, only red-hot anger.
Mentally, I’m preparing myself for what’s about to come next. Hell hath no fury like a teenager scorned.
“You embarrassed me!” she screams, slamming her fist on the table. “You really can’t stop yourself from ruining my life, can you?”
“I’ve put up with this for too long, Deja!” My voice fills the room, her next words dying on her tongue. It isn’t often I raise my voice. Jake had been more of the disciplinarian over the years, and perhaps that was where I went wrong.
Maybe if I hadn’t been so lenient with her in the past, she wouldn’t be disrespecting me now.
“You’re going to scare off my friends, just like you scared off Dad!”
My body tenses, even while heat courses through my body. “You know, Deja, I really don’t care that you’re sixteen and think you’re grown now. For the little stunt you pulled tonight, you’re grounded. You go to school, and you come home from school. That’s it.”
Stamping her feet on the tiled floor, Deja yells, “That’s not fair!”
I will myself to stay calm. Back in the day, if I were to eventhinkabout giving my mother any back talk, she might have rearranged my face before I finished the sentence. Now here I am in the mother role, and my daughter is giving me back talk. I’m surprised my mother isn’t slapping my daughter across the face from the grave.
“What’s not fair is my teenage daughter thinking she runs the show and doesn’t have to tell me when she’s going out. What isn’t fair is having to search through the streets at night for you, having no idea where you are or if you’re safe.” I draw a long breath and then release it in a huff. “Damn it, Deja. What if the cops had found you before I did? Have you even considered that? You don’t get the same luxuries your friends get! You say one wrong thing, reach for one wrong thing—even air—and you’re dead. The cops will shoot first and ask questions later.”
Deja bites her bottom lip, her dark-brown eyes shining as she gets up and flees the room. As soon as she leaves, I sink into a chair and bury my face in my hands. Sobs shake my body as the fear finally spills over. I didn’t know where she was tonight, and something could’ve happened. We’re lucky nothing did, but we might not be so lucky next time.
I fish my phone from my pocket, needing another adult to talk to. Dawn answers on the first ring, her husband shouting at a football game in the background.
“Everything’s going to hell, and I don’t know what to do anymore,” I say, tears still flowing down my cheeks. “I thought I knew what I was going to do when Jake left, but everything’s going to shit. I feel like a failure as a parent. My daughter hates me and keeps lashing out and acting like a brat, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Tracey, everything isn’t going to hell. It’s not like you’re raising the spawn of Satan and there’s nothing you can do about it, you know?” Dawn pauses for a moment before sighing. “Tracey, Deja’s a good girl, but she’s going through a tough time right now. She’s going to make your life miserable because she doesn’t want to be alone in her misery. Don’t you remember what we were like at that age?”
Despite myself, I laughed. “Yeah, you’re right about that.”
“I’m grabbing some wine and ice cream. Your ass better be in pajamas by the time I get there.”
Dawn hangs up without so much as a goodbye. Though she has a new baby at home, Dawn’s still the kind of woman who will find a way to be at your side through the fire. We’ve been best friends since high school, and she’s seen me through the worst life has to offer. When I found out Jake was cheating, she’d been my second call. The divorce lawyer had been the first.
