Alchamist Tempest Ch. 2

Bridget woke up in Aedan’s arms. She shook Aedan awake since he was still sound asleep. When he woke up she told him she was ready to go home. She grabbed her now dry clothes from the day before, her cell phone, and her book. Aedan grabbed his travel bag and put his free arm around Bridget’s waist.

Thirty minutes later Bridget was standing in the middle of the living room at her house listening to her mother babble on about how Bridget had been out all night. “Why can’t you listen to me for once Bridget? I was worried sick about you. I told you to come home when I called you last night, and what do you decide to do? You decide that you are going to stay out all night again. You can’t keep doing this. Where were you anyway?”

Bridget rolled her eyes, “I told you I would come home when I was good and ready, right before I hung up the phone. Don’t you remember? Oh, and where I was is none of your business.”

“It is to my business; I’m your mother, your supposed to tell me where you are going before you even leave this house. What would you do if some stranger came along and kidnapped you and I didn’t know where you where you were supposed to be going, or better yet, I didn’t even know you had left? That seems to be your new thing, either you leave with out telling me where you’re going, or you leave with out me even knowing.” Aileen stared at her daughter, waiting for an answer. Bridget rolled her eyes again and turned to walk away and go upstairs to her bedroom. “Don’t you walk away from me young lady! I’m not done talking to you!” Bridget stopped and turned around a look of surprise drawn on her face. Her mother never yelled. “Now tell me where you were last night.”

Now Bridget chuckled. Did her mother really think that a little yelling was going to make Bridget spill her secret place to her mother? Bridget looked at her mother, a strong look of defiance now upon her face, “No.” Bridget turned on one heal and walked up the stairs.

“You’re grounded young lady, do you hear me, you’re grounded. You’re grounded until school starts.” Aileen was furious; she was done with her daughter’s rebellious and defiant attitude.

Bridget stopped and turned her head to look at her mother out of the corner of her eye,” Do you really think that is going to stop me from going out. You could put a pad lock on my door and bars on my window for all I care, I’ll still find away out.” Bridget walked the rest of the way up the stairs to her bedroom and slammed the door closed.

Cathal walked down the stairs and stopped on his way out the door to show his disapproval toward his mother. “You really need to lay off mom. Bridget needs some room to breath, and the only reason she isn’t getting that room to breath is because you won’t allow her to have it.”

“You have no right to tell me how to raise Bridget, she is my daughter Cathal, not yours. I will take whatever means I feel are necessary in disciplining her, and if you don’t like it that’s to bad.”

“That’s fine, you go right ahead and do that. But I guarantee it will only make things worse. You know she hates you right? Do you really want her to hate you more? Oh and I think we all know you can’t stand how rebellious she is; well, I can promise you she will only become more rebellious if you keep treating her this way. Can’t you see that? I swear you’re the only person on this planet that has no idea how she feels right now, and trust me you’ve made it quite clear to her that you don’t care about the fact that our father died three months ago! Have you taken a walk in her shoes since that day? It’s like his death is nothing to you! Have you even cried once since he died?”

“Brian has nothing to do with what just happened between your sister and I, and quiet frankly I don’t think it’s any of your business what happened! Oh and for the record, I do know how your sister feels about Brian’s death. I just think that three months is more than enough time to get over a persons death.”

“You see, that’s where you’re wrong. It takes a lot longer than just three months to get over a loved ones death, mother.” Cathal was irascible, and it was almost hard to not be able to hear it in his voice, “Oh and for your information, dad does have a lot to do with this because it’s obvious that the only reason Bridget takes off every night, is so that she can be by herself to think about him and cry if she needs to with out you criticizing her and telling her she should be over him and move on! Why don’t you try thinking for once, use some common sense!” Cathal shook his head in disapproval of his mother, and then opened the door to leave. He stopped when he had one foot out the door and just stared into the distance for a moment thinking about the fight he had just had with his mother. She had changed so much when his father died, it was like she had taken advantage of the fact that he had passed on to try and control the lives of her children completely. Cathal didn’t agree with letting her do that. “I’m going to see Brianna, I don’t know when… or if I’ll be back.”

“You see that girlfriend of yours to much Cathal.”

“Excuse me for wanting to see my girlfriend and show her that I love and care about her. Is there something wrong with that, or is this just you trying to control my life? Have you forgotten that I go to collage in a few weeks in America, with Brianna, and we will be getting married after school is over? Oh, please also remember that we will be staying in the United States after we get married. I would also like to inform you that there has been a slight change to the guest list, you’re no longer invited!” Cathal walked out the door and slammed it closed behind him.

Aileen sat on the couch, her eyes swelling with tears. She was driving her kids away from her. She was beginning to think that none of her kids loved her at all any more, not even her five-year-old son who barley even knew what love was. She had been enjoying the fact that she could control her kids more now than when Brian was alive. But she was controlling them too much and she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She was beginning to wish that she could walk in her daughter’s shoes for a day, and find out why she was so rebellious now that her father was gone, she knew he meant a lot to her but there had to be some other reason why she was so rebellious. The only thing she could see in Bridget any more was a young lady running around looking for trouble everywhere she went. She had driven her daughter so far away that Bridget barley ever even talked to her any more. She missed the way things used to be, before Brian’s death. But she knew that she couldn’t go back and change the past. Aileen’s life was a mess and it wasn’t going to get cleaned up because it was to late for that. She had let things get to far out of hand and now everything was messed up completely.

Bridget came down the stairs and opened the door. “Excuse me young lady, where do you think your going?”

Bridget rolled her eyes “I’m going out.”

“No your not, your grounded remember?” Aileen got up and walked over to the door, she closed it and stood in front of it. “The only place your going is back up to your room until dinner.”

“Fine! I hate you!” Bridget turned around and walked back up the stairs to her room, laughing inside. She was beginning to think her mother’s brain was frying; she had to know that Bridget would find another way out. Bridget closed and locked her bedroom door, and then she pushed her desk chair under the handle so that if her mother found the key to her room, she wouldn’t be able to push the door open. Then Bridget walked over to her window and opened it, she took out the screen, and prayed that the drainpipe next to her window would be strong enough to hold her. She reached out the window and took hold of the drainpipe and tried to move it, it seemed sturdy enough. She climbed out the window and wrapped her legs around the drainpipe, and then she wrapped one arm around tight, and pushed down on the window with the other to close it as far as she could from the outside with only one hand. She slid down the drainpipe and ran to Aedan’s car, which was parked in the driveway. “Did you just come down that drainpipe?”

“Drive now, talk later.”

“Right, okay.” Aedan put the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway and drove down the street. He pulled into a bank parking lot and parked the car. “So, do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“I got grounded for not coming home last night. Apparently my mother thinks that is going to stop me from going out, I even tried to tell her that putting bars on my window and a pad lock on my door it wouldn’t stop me, but everything I said must have gone in one ear and out the other. So can we go now, or aren’t you ready?”

“I’m ready, let’s go.” Aedan got out of the car and went around to the passenger side and opened the door for Bridget, who got out and grabbed to hoodies from the back. She put one on and gave the other to Aedan. They walked across the street to the local department/ grocery store, Costcutter. They went inside and stopped to talk. “Okay you know the deal, we split up, find what we want, and meet back at the car in ten minutes when I set off the alarm. Also, don’t forget, if one of us gets caught we call the other. Let’s split up.” Aedan walked back to electronics, and Bridget went back to sports. She couldn’t find anything of interest so she walked back up front. Bridget decided that she didn’t want to leave empty handed so she grabbed some candy, a few bottles of soda, and a couple bags of chips. She walked around until she found a bag that she could use. It was a large handbag with Sally from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” on the front. She dropped the candy, soda, and chips in the bag, and took the bag off the rack. Then she walked around for a little longer waiting for the alarm to go off. She put her hood up and walked over to the clothing department. Bridget was caught off guard when the alarm went off; she put her head down and took off out the door and across the street to Aedan’s car. She never could figure out why Aedan insisted that they wear hoodies and keep their heads down when they were stealing from Costcutter, since nobody at the store seemed to care, the only people they needed to watch out for were the cops. Bridget got in the car, threw the bag in the back and yanked the hoodie off. Nobody had seen them so Aedan took his time getting the car started and driving off so they wouldn’t draw attention to themselves.

“Where do you want to go now?”

Bridget thought for a moment, she didn’t want to go home just yet, and she wasn’t all that hungry, so going to get lunch was on the bottom of the list. “You said your parents aren’t coming home till the day after school starts right?”

“Yeah, why? Do you want to go back to my place?”

“Yeah, just for a little while, I don’t really want to go home yet.”

“Okay sounds good to me. My parents don’t hate you as much as you think. They just don’t approve of your behavior and they think that ever since your dad died you are a bad influence on me. Of course I’m sure you mother could probably say the same about me, and I’m sure she has felt that way about me since we started dating.”

“What does any of what you just said have to do with me wanting to go to your place?”

“Well you wanted to be sure that my parents weren’t going to be there, or at least that’s the impression I got when you said, ‘your parents aren’t coming back until after the first day of school right’. Am I wrong to believe that the reason why you wanted to confirm that information was because you know my parents aren’t your biggest fans?”

“Fine, I’ll admit it, that’s why I asked. Are you happy now? It’s not my fault that your parents are blind to the fact that you acted the way you do before I came along.”

“It’s not like that. It’s just that, before you came along they wouldn’t believe that I was the way I am. Then when I first stated dating you, they loved you, they thought you were great and could help to clean up my act. They didn’t start to lose respect until your father died and you started following in my footsteps, and when you did, it gave them somebody to blame for my behavior.”

“So now your saying it’s okay for them to blame me for something I didn’t do simply because I’m with you?”

“I didn’t mean it like that Bridget, and it’s not my fault. If you have such a problem with it then talk to them about it.” They were both silent the rest of they way to Aedan’s house. When he pulled in the driveway Aedan got out of the car and went to go unlock the door to the house, then he went back to the car and opened the trunk where he had put the stuff that he had stolen.

“You know, if we got caught that’s the first place the police would look.”

Aedan chuckled then looked at Bridget and gave her a pathetic look, “Is Cuma liom. That means I don’t care”

“I know what it means Aedan; I think I know some Gaelic considering the fact that it is the language of Ireland, which, if you remember correctly, is where we live, jerk. I’m really starting to hate you Aedan.” Bridget rolled her eyes and went into the house. Her phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket to answer it. The screen told her it was her mother. “Hello Aileen, what do you want?”

“First off, I am your mother and you do not call me by my first name. Second, I want to know where you are.”

“I’m in my room mother. Where do you think I am? Did you forget that you grounded me?”

“Don’t get smart with me Bridget. I saw Aedan pull into the driveway.”

“How do you know it was Aedan? It could have been somebody with the same car as Aedan who just pulled into our driveway to turn around.”

“I highly doubt that Bridget.”

“Fine it was Aedan, but I didn’t go with him, I called his cell phone when he pulled in and told him I couldn’t come because I was grounded.”

“Come on Bridget, how stupid do you think I am? I know your lying to me, and if you’re home and in your room then why don’t you prove it to me by unlocking your door.”

“No, you have a key, unlock it yourself.” Bridget hung up the phone and walked out of Aedan’s house and started walking up the street.

Aedan yelled after her, “Baby, where are you going? Come back, I’m sorry about what I said I didn’t mean it! I love you!”

“What ever! I’ll see you tomorrow, maybe.” Bridget walked home and snuck back into the house and to her room. Five minutes later her mom unlocked the door and walked into Bridget’s room to find Bridget sitting on her bed reading a book.

“I know you went out, Bridget. I’m not stupid”

“Yeah, whatever. You can leave now.” Bridget waved her hand at her mother. Aileen shook her head and left, closing the door behind her.