Nibble part 16

"Remi?" I winced at my dad's voice and clicked the front door closed quietly behind me. I walked into the kitchen, "Um, hey, dad." He narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, "Where were you?" I groaned internally. Great. Now he cared. "Um, school?" He rolled his eyes, "You know what I mean. you were not at school until 1 AM." I winced again, "Oh. Um. I was with Lindsay and Gabby." He rose an eyebrow, "Oh, were you?" I nodded. "Where?" he pressed, his tone agitated. I swallowed, "Uh, you know. Just hanging out. Listening to music." He tapped his shoe on the tile, "Until 1 AM." I swallowed again, "Um. Yup." He sighed, "Listen, young lady. I want the truth, and I want it now." I swallowed, thought about lying, and decided that my skills in that particular area were not practiced enough to try out with a risk. "We went to a concert." He rose his eyebrows. "A concert."

"Yea."

"A rave?"

"What? No! No, dad, not a rave! Geez!" He tapped his foot again, "Alright, good." I sighed, thinking it was over. Silly me. "Whose concert?"

"What? Oh, um, Muse."

"Muse?"

"Um, yea."

"That crap you blast in your room?" I tried not to roll my eyes at his referring to the close-to-silent volume I played my music at in my room when my headphones weren't plugged in, which was not regularly. "I don't blast music." He scoffed, "Maybe you don't think you blast your music." He turned away from me, "Next time, ask for permission first." I blinked, "Oh. Um, yea, of course."

"And you're grounded."

"What?"

"You're grounded. For a month." My jaw dropped, "A month?"

"He turned his head slightly, so that I could see him but he couldn't see me, "Shall we make it two?" I gritted my teeth at the commonly used phrase and said, "No," solidly. He nodded and walked into the living room with his paper, praising himself for being such a good father, no doubt. Oh, yea, he knows how to punish. How to care or love or tend or comfort, no, but he knows how to punish.

I don't know why I thought it was necessary for me to take my dad's grounding so seriously, but I sat in my room that night and played Muse on my iPod at full volume rather than sneaking out, remembering a million moments like this in the past. Laying in bed, the covers tucked over my head, the music never loud enough to cover up the sounds of our family, the sound of the yelling. I imagined my couch at the department store, the fabric untouched, collecting dust as I lay in my bed. The lights blinking subtly on the ceiling, not growing irritating as they switched the pages of my notebook from lit up to slightly dimmer over and over. And I imagined Nick, wherever he was. Outside the alley, waiting for me. Walking off, maybe, to wherever it was that he went once I was safe. Or maybe he, like me, was trying out staying at home for one night. I wondered if he was finding sleep. I wondered if something other than the insomnia kept his awake, like me. I wondered how he had become an insomniac in the first place. What was it that kept him up late every night for so long a time that it became impossible for him to fall asleep before that time? Did something trouble him, like me, or had he simply stayed up to finish homework, or to play video games? Perhaps there was a late night TV show he stayed up for. Maybe he had noisy neighbors. Whatever the reason, it had kept him up, and now, we were both awake. Far apart-but both wide awake.

© 2010