Page 49 of Catfish

With the student debt he mentioned before, I don’t perceive him too much as a tool.

Me: You’re teasing me.

Chase: With the amount of crime shows you watch—I’m afraid to.

Me: *wiggles eyebrows*

Me: But that's it, though? Beer and a massage?

Chase: Wow, you’re a brat.

Chase: But no.

Chase: Have a good night with your mom, Sox.

Chase: Don’t think of me too much.

“You ready to get going?” Mama yells from down the hall, breaking me out of my sudden interest of Chase’s skill set.

“Yeah,” I call back as she shows up in my line of sight. I’d shoot a text back to Chase, calling him an asshole, but then I’d risk Mama’s wrath.

Hard pass.

Mama grabs her purse, and I reach behind her, wrapping my arms around her frail body. "What's this for?" She pats my hand softly that rests on her collarbone.

“Because we love you, Mama.”

Marty and I, we’d be lost without you.

“I love you too, hunny.” I don’t think she catches on to the plural in my sentence until we hit the front door. “Both of you.”

? Alone In A Room — Asking Alexandra ?

“Incoming, incoming,” Emmy’s voice urgently states when I answer the phone in my office.

It only means one of two things, both of them I don’t have the patience to see nor the time to deal with.

Hanging up, I wait for the door to either burst open or softly crack, alluding to which of the two pain in the asses will be gracing my office any second now.

It comes as no surprise, I haven't taken phone calls or text messages from either of my parents in over a month. And each one has become either more pissed off or "pity-party" with each statement they send to me—begging, pleading, and demanding for me to answer.

No one is going to demand me to do anything but what I’m already doing—which is me handling my career and life alone.

But this—it was bound to happen when I announced myself as a Democratic delegate for president over five months ago. After I did several nights of debates and openly spoke about the issues we’re facing as a country, broadcasted all over TV, my father wasted no time telling me what he believed I should’ve done differently. That I should’ve sugar-coated it more. My mother said I wore the wrong suit and tie.

You know, important shit.

However, neither mattered because I was leading in the polls without the help of either parent, but by my own words.

Ones I’ve practiced.

Words I’ve meant.

And promises that I plan on keeping. Even though reporters and bloggers continuously link me to my father and state that I’m “following in his footsteps.”

Which I’m trying not to do.

That path—don’t even want to look at it.

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