Chapter 5 - THE BREAKING POINT
"Mom, wait!" I jumped between her and Brian. "Just listen to me for one minute!"
"I am calling the police!" my mother screamed, reaching for the landline phone on my hallway wall. "This boy broke into our house! He is trespassing!"
"He didn't break in! I let him in through the window!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.
"Leo, move!" she ordered, her fingers flying over the phone key pad. "I am protecting this family!"
Brian didn't wait. He looked at me with an expression of pure apology, stepped backward onto my window sill, and jumped out into the rain, disappearing into the dark backyard.
"Brian!" I shouted, rushing to the window.
My mother grabbed me by the back of my collar, pulling me violently backward onto the carpet. "You are out of your mind!" she shrieked, tears of rage in her eyes. "You are associating with criminals! You are ruining this family’s reputation!"
"Reputation?!" I screamed, ripping myself away from her grip. "That’s all you care about! You don't care about truth! You don't care about a kid getting burned with a curling iron! You just care about what the women at your stupid garden club think!"
SLAP.
The sound echoed through the hallway like a gunshot.
My face snapped to the left. My cheek burned with a sharp, stinging heat.
My mother stood above me, her hand still raised in the air, her chest heaving. She had never hit me before. Never in twelve years.
She looked down at her hand, shock flickering across her eyes for a split second, before her face hardened back into a wall of defense.
"You will never speak to me like that again," she said, her voice shaking uncontrollably. "Go to your room. Lock the door. If you step foot out of that room before your father gets home tomorrow, so help me God, Leo, I will send you to a military boarding school."
She slammed my bedroom door shut, and I heard the lock turn from the outside.
I stood in the dark room, my cheek throbbing, my heart pounding like a war drum.
I walked slowly over to my desk.
I picked up the flash drive from the carpet where I had dropped it during the struggle. I tucked it safely into the inner zip pocket of my heaviest winter coat.
Then I looked at the window.
The rain was coming down harder now, washing down the glass in torrents.
I didn't hesitate.
May you like
I grabbed my backpack, shoved three pairs of socks, a flashlight, and forty dollars from my birthday stash inside, opened the window, and climbed down the porch trellis into the freezing night.
I was done waiting for adults to grow a conscience.
