Page 106 of Searching for Nova

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“We trusted you,” my dad says. “We let you go to the party only to find out you didn’t go.”

“I was at the party. I have pictures on my phone to prove it.”

“How long did you stay?” my mom asks.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t keeping track of the time.”

“I went there at ten,” my dad says. “You weren’t there. Kevin’s mother said she hadn’t seen you all night.”

“Here.” I get out my phone and show him the photo of Kevin and me standing under his birthday banner. “Happy now?”

“Maybe you went, but you didn’t stay. I looked for your Jeep. It wasn’t there.”

“Were you out with that girl?” my mom asks.

“What if I was?” I say. “I’m still home on time. I made curfew.”

My dad points his finger at me. “You’re grounded. We gave you permission to go to your friend’s party and nowhere else. You are now grounded for a month. And if you keep breaking the rules, you’ll be grounded until graduation.”

“I’m not letting you do this.” I look back and forth between my parents. “You wouldn’t be grounding me if I’d been with some other girl, a girl you approve of because she’s rich and goes to private school. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if I’d spent tonight with Paris.”

“This has nothing to do with whoever this girl is,” my dad says. “We’re grounding you because you broke the rules. You live under our roof, you follow our rules. It’s as simple as that.”

“Fine. Then I won’t live here. I’ll move out.”

“Easton, don’t even joke about that,” my mom scolds. “This is your home.”

“It was, until you decided I’m not allowed to pick my own friends.”

“Honey, that’s not what we’re doing,” my mom says. “We’d just like to meet this girl. It’s not unusual for parents to want to know who their child is spending time with.”

“But given the way you’re sneaking around behind our backs,” my dad says, “I don’t get a good feeling about this girl. You’ve never snuck around like this before, which leads me to believe there’s something about her you don’t want us to know.”

“She’s poor. That’s it. That’s why I don’t want you meeting her. You’ll judge her for not having money or a rich family or because she goes to a shitty school. You’ll tell me I can’t see her and we’ll end up where we’re at now, with me sneaking out to see her.”

My dad eyes me. “So thereissomething going on with you two.”

“No. That’s not what I said. I’m friends with her. That’s it. And it doesn’t matter. That’s not even the point. What’s going on here is you two think you can control my life, including who I’m friends with, and I’m fucking sick of it!”

“That’s enough!” my dad says, raising his voice. “You are being very disrespectful. Go to your room, and don’t come out until you can show some respect.”

I step up to him and look him in the eye. “You want to ground me? Go ahead, but if you do, I’m moving out when I turn 18. It’s only a few weeks away. Maybe I’ll even drop out of school and finish the year at a public school, which is where I wanted to go but you wouldn’t let me.”

“Stephen,” my mom says, gazing up at him, her eyes tearing up. “We can’t let him do this.”

“He won’t,” my dad says, his eyes locked on mine. “He has nowhere to go.”

“Maybe you forgot,” I say, “but I used to live on the streets, and I’d do it again if I had to.” I wouldn’t, but I’m hoping just tossing that out there will get them to back down.

My mom’s looking at my dad like she wants him to fix this, but his eyes remain on mine. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow.” He turns and walks out of the room.

“We’ll figure this out,” my mom says. “Goodnight, honey.” She races off, following my dad down the hall.

This is insane. My dad’s showing up at parties to see if I’m there? Threatening to ground me until graduation? If they’re going to be this way, I don’t want to be here anymore. I wasn’t actually planning to move out. I didn’t think it would come to that, but now I’m thinking it might.

* * *

---