Julien was late. Again.
His fucking mother.
He absolutely could not wait to be out of her house and on his own. Every hour, every minute, every second under her roof was sheer torture. The nagging and the needling and all the passive aggressive bullshit. He just couldn’t take it anymore.
It was like a never-ending torrent of disingenuous blather, and he was literally drowning in it, counting the days until his eighteenth birthday when he could finally be free.
This morning’s guilt trip and gaslighting combo featured a skree on the dogs and his lack of enthusiasm for picking up their shit. She’d combined that criticism with a really lovely segue into how it was his inability to respect her time that was to blame for their running late, even though he’d been ready and waiting for a half hour before she’d finally waddled down the stairs.
And as usual, once they got into the truck and started driving there was more, there were the endless questions about who and what and where and why. It was like living with the head of the Stasi. It was an excruciating fifteen minutes, repeated every weekday morning for the last ten years.
As Julien was getting out of the truck he could hear the final bell ringing in the distance. His mom could too, but she insisted on questioning him about his plans and his homework…
