Chapter Eleven

Diagnosed with Love:

Chapter 11

After school came around a lot faster than I thought. When I was making my way to my car, I saw my dad out the corner of my eye. He was hiding behind the side of the building. If I didn’t have good instincts to always be aware of my surroundings, I would have never seen him. My first response was to freeze in my current spot and figure out what to do next, but I acted on my second response and made a run for it.

“Star!” I heard Jeremiah shout as he quickly cut the corner and took off after me. I kept running, knowing that I could easily outrun this old man when it came down to it. If I had to run a longer distance, he would be eating my dust. I reached my car in a hurry, him not anywhere near me yet. I opened the driver’s door, threw my things to the passenger’s side, and fired her up. “Star, don’t you run from me!”

It was already a little late for that, Jeremiah, I thought in my head. He was closer now. I shut my door and took off down the road, hoping that I wouldn’t get stopped for well past breaking the speed limit. I would outrun the cops if I had to, if it meant getting away from him. I took my phone out my pocket, remembering that it had vibrated a while ago while I was running. I flipped it open with my thumb and placed it on my ear as I accepted the call. “Sorry…again…”

“You keep saying sorry. What the hell are you doing?” Cas asked me, wanting answers.

I slowed down when I hit the corner. “I’m sorry, you just call at the wrong time. My dad decided to show up at school. Luckily, he’s an old fart and I can outrun him.”

“Speaking of dads, mine grounded me until I learn to be civilized.”

“Did you tell him that it was my fault? Maybe he’ll lighten up…”

“Hm, my dad lighten up on me? Not likely. You may be used to Mr. Nice Guy, but I’m not. This ‘niceness’ he’s showing is weird and creepy. Although it was nice to get away with a few things, I think I snapped him outta his nice streak when he got that call from the school saying that I’ve been suspended. He told me he was proud I won and if I breathed a breath without him saying so, he’d kick my a*s.”

“Way to show how proud you are,” I said.

“He doesn’t care. He told me that if I ever got beat up, I better not come home because I’d be getting my a*s beat twice, and the other beating was gonna be from him.”

“Oh, wow… either way, you still get it.”

“Yup, but I made sure I won every fight when I was a kid. It was only because I hated people and I didn’t want that second a*s whoppin’. That and my dad also said that if he found out that I lost, he would drag me by my hair to the kid’s house and make me fight the boy in front of him until I won.”

“Harsh- your dad’s strict.”

“I told you- strict is his first name, he just goes by Terrence.”

“Cas!” I hear Terrence shout from the other end of the phone. I could hear him loud and clear, as if he were shouting at me.

“S**t…” I heard Cas mumble. Then nothing… I looked at the phone and he was no longer on the line. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be on the phone? That would be part of a grounding. I hung up the phone and took off for Patience’s daycare. She was the second person on my mind. As I rode, I thought about what Cas said. When I thought about it, Cas has always said that his dad was strict…

One time, he didn’t even have to say it. When I was a freshman, Cas and I had had the same gym class. It was also another reason why I disliked the male population. Freshman boys- ugh. That day, Terrence had dragged Cas into the gym room and threw him up against the wall. Sang, the gym teacher, and I were the only people in the gym at this time. “Still think you’re tough!?” Terrence had said to Cas, startling Sang and me. Cas didn’t say a word, instead just turning around and looking at the man- his father, who had just assaulted him. Even though he was looking at him, he avoided his eyes.

“Come on, Star, we should get out of here,” said Sang as I stood and watched.

“Got the balls to assault the teacher again? I dare you.” Cas studied his father’s figure, still avoiding eye contact. “Assault me,” Terrence growled. Cas’s eyes grew just a little bit bigger, as if saying “Look at you, why would I dare try?” I was scared for him… “Get your a*s out to that car. When I get there, you better not be breathing. Now get outta my face.”

I watched as he quickly turned and went to the other side of the gym to gather his things as his dad went to go speak with the gym teacher, who nodded at Terence with satisfaction. Sang and I quickly grabbed our things and left the gym, standing outside the gym doors.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I dunno, I was watching just like you were. Cas has a super strict dad- no wonder he has this dark ‘I hate the world’ glare. It’s kinda sad.”

“Who’s Cas?” I asked.

“Hello! Where are you, Starland? The boy who just got punked by his dad, a.k.a. Mr. Scary?”

“Oooh… right…”

“Duh.” She laughed. “You’re the ditsy one- I have yet to remember.”

Just then, Cas walked out, just about knocking me over. Sang caught me before I could fall. “Watch where you’re going,” he said in a low growl. He brushed his shoulder against mine roughly as he passed by, his eyes dark and cold, his voice harsh and stern.

“Sorry…” I said.

“Star, don’t say sorry to that A*s. You bumped into her, Jerk!” said Sang. Cas just put his hands in his pockets and kept walking.

I pulled up to Higher Peak daycare center as I remembered the last thing in the sequence of Cas’ assault. I was hoping to sneak in and maybe get a sense of how she was doing-what her actions were. Most of the time, she had already spotted me and attached herself to some part of my body. When I had made it in, just as I predicted, exactly that happened- only more suddenly. She wrapped her tiny little arms around my leg. I laughed. “Patience, what are you doing, silly?”

“Sar here, it time go home,” she said, not hesitating a word of it.

“You were waiting on me this whole time?” I asked her.

“Yups! Me sit right heres.” She pointed to the spot beside the door where she had previously sat before grabbing hold of my pants leg, as if reading my mind when I thought of sneaking in. Patience was a very smart girl- maybe too smart sometimes.

“Okay.” I pried her arms off. “Get your things and wait for me by the door.” She nodded and scrambled off to follow orders as I made my way over to the assistant teacher of the classroom. “Hey, is the head teacher in?” I felt rude for not saying her name instead, but I couldn’t honestly think of it at the moment.

“No, she had to run out early today. Is there something that I could perhaps help you with?”

“Yes… was Patience at the door all day today?” I asked.

“As a matter of fact, she was. Karen told me to watch her closely because she was afraid she was going to run out the door. She wouldn’t move from that spot even if we bribed her. She kept saying that you were coming soon to pick her up. We tried to explain that it would be a while before you came back, but she still just wouldn’t listen.” I sighed and she continued. “She ate over there, read over there, watched the movie over there… she even dragged her cot over there and slept.”

Now I was worried. “Thank you,” I said as I headed back to Patience. She grabbed hold of my hand, just like I always taught her to when we were leaving a room. Always find my hand, I would often say to her to make sure that she was never lost or left. I opened the door for her and she walked out, me following her close behind. Later, we reached the house, and I grabbed Patience’s hand- so she wouldn’t go anywhere- while I fished around for all her belongings. I then led her inside to the angry mom awaiting.

“Hi mommy!” Patience jumped happily down the stairs into the family room.

“Hey sweetheart, how was daycare?” She quickly put on a smile for her as I mentally flipped through pages of things I could have possibly done this week. Patience was the perfect distraction- she could talk for hours when it came down to it. I often used her to buy more time if I needed it, to clean something, or something similar to that- but right now I really couldn’t think of anything I had done wrong.

Patience avoided the question. “Me have teddy gamms today!”

“That’s great. Speaking of teddy grams, I got a present for you from the company- go see if you can find it in my room.” That was her sweet and innocent way of getting rid of Patience so that she could quickly get to me.

“Otay!” Patience quickly abandoned her book bag in the middle of the floor and took off for Mom’s room. I was finally alone with the big bad wolf- female version, of course- and she was ready to chew me up and spit me out. Little did you know, the female version of a villain was almost always way worse than the male version.

“What is this, Star?” She held up my red history notebook. Uh oh, I said to myself. It was the one that had, “I love Cas,” surrounded by hearts and other silly little doodles. I still haven’t figured out why girls subconsciously doodle their crush’s name on various things other than paper- which in the long run gets them caught at some point- but boys did no such thing.

“It’s… a notebook…”

“Keep being a smart a*s, Star!”

“I ran from dad today…” I said, hoping to change the subject and her attitude.

“Jeremiah will be the least of your problems when I get through with you,” she said in the coldest voice imaginable. I think it just about gave me the shivers. I thought about all the things I had written in the back of that notebook… the things I had scribbled down and dated to remember exactly the day it had happened… things that went on between me and Cas…

“I can explain…”

“Oh, you had better start explaining!”

“Mom, just listen… I-I… I really-”

“If you needed help, you should have just asked someone!”

“Huh?” I said. Help with what? I thought to myself. She took out my history quiz and threw the notebook down in front of me. It landed on the doodles of Cas’ name all over the page. I tried to force my eyes not to look at it so that she wouldn’t look down.

“This, Star!” She waved a failed history quiz in my face from last week.

“Oh, that.” I relaxed to know it was only a failing grade she was referring to- and not the me dating Cas behind her back.

“What do you mean, ‘Oh, that’?!’ We came up with a deal, Star. You broke it. I could see a ‘C,’ maybe even a ‘D’ at the worst, but an ‘F,,’ Star? What the hell were you doing?!”

“Wait, I retook that quiz, Mom. Patience had a nightmare the night before and I was up all night. So the next day in class… I fell asleep, woke up at the bell, and started circling stuff in a hurry. I convinced Mr. Cole to let me retake the quiz and-” I went over to my book bag and gave her the new quiz. “I got an ‘A’ on it. He gave me all essay questions instead of multiple choice.”

She studied the quizzes, then handed them back to me. I quickly picked up the notebook, closed it, and shoved it into my book bag.

“Sorry…” She wrapped her arms around me. “Work’s just been really frustrating… and seeing that ‘F’ on your paper... made me think that you were failing… and that just hit my limits…”

“It’s okay, Mom- really.”

“You said you ran from your dad? I tried to warn you that he said he’d be in town. You don’t ever listen to me.”

“Make me listen next time… I had a nervous breakdown at Cas’…”

“Oh honey, I’m sorry.” She rubbed my back. “What were you doing at Cas’?”

After a long while of searching Patience, dragged in a huge cream-colored teddy bear with a large red bow. It was definitely bigger than she was. “Wook Sar!” Mom and I laughed at her, and Mom let go of her hold on me.

“Mom, it’s huge.” Patience always saved my a*s, even though she wasn’t aware she was doing it half of the time.

“The company missed seeing her for a couple months and had this made for her. It surprised me when I walked in- it was sitting at my desk.” We both laughed again. “When they told me it was for Patience, the first thing I thought was, ‘God, how the hell am I gonna get this big biggie in my car?’”

I laughed some more. “Now that’s funny.”

“No, funny’s if you would have seen me trying to push that thing into my little ol’ car- it has extreme, excess, unnecessary fluff. I was wishing I woulda took the expedition.”

After she explained that, I was in tears. That was too funny. While I was still laughing, Mom rolled up part of the newspaper and bopped me in the head, then left the room. Patience had made her way in front of the TV and was holding her new best friend as she watched cartoons. I picked up my book bag and made my way to my room.

Man, am I glad Mom didn’t find what was written in the back of that notebook. It was time to get rid of that notebook once and for all. Lock it up, burn it, put it through a paper shredder, something. It was too risky having it now. I’d be dead if she found out- Cas would be already buried. I would really have to start being more aware of my surroundings a lot more. I’m gonna have to be a lot more careful too. Let the games begin.