“What the hell is your problem?!” Nicole turned around in surprise; she didn’t know her mother was still awake. “Well are you going to answer me? Or would you rather just stand there with your mouth hanging open, staring at me?” On that point, Nicole was still undecided as she looked at her mother. The woman was in her old and tattered green robe, her dyed blonde hair with almost black roots going completely wild and she had a crazed look in her eyes.

“What was the question?” Nicole finally asked innocently as she impassively continued to take off her jacket and gloves. She set them down on the back of their ugly brown living room couch and then tucked her hair behind her ears, her usual ritual for what was about to come, and she turned to face her even more furious mother.

“HOW DARE YOU!” she cried at her daughter. All Nicole could do was cross her arms over her chest in attempt to keep some of her mother’s rage from touching her. “I’ve been sitting here, right here in this very f**king chair, waiting for you to get home! Why you might ask? Well I’ll tell you why. Because I didn’t know where the hell my sixteen year old daughter was at-” she cut herself off to glance at the old fashioned wall clock in the dining room, “at f**king two forty-five in the f**king morning, that’s why! Now what do you have to say for yourself?” she began to sit down and almost stumbled in her effort to get to the couch while waiting for Nicole’s reply and muttered, “I can’t f**king wait to hear this.”

Nicole rolled her eyes at her mother’s excessive cursing. “Mom it’s Friday.” She received only a plain stare. “Mom, I told you last week that I was going to be at Kimberly’s house Friday night…..tonight.” She still seemed to get no understanding. She knows she is going to get nowhere with this. “You really don’t remember?”

The silence continued for about another minute as they both stared at each other until her mother moved. She slumped forward, as if the effort impaired her and said, “You’re grounded for a month.”

“What?!”

“Don’t ‘what’ me! Next time you wont keep me waiting till-“ she looked at the clock again, straining her eyes to see the rather large black roman numerals, “- three twelve.”

“I can’t believe this!” Nicole stalked past her mother, aiming for the old scratched up door at the end of the hall. Unfortunately, a die-hard grip around her slender upper arm stopped her in her tracks.

“Now you listen to me you little b***h,” her mother breathed in her face, the stench of warm rum, Crown Royal, and corndogs protruded from her mouth, “don’t ever take that tone of voice with me again. Am I clear?”
“Did I make myself clear Nicole!”
“Y-ee-esss.” Nicole stammered. Her mother let go of her arm but her handprint remained and she shuffled into her room, mumbling the entire way. As quietly as she could and as comatose as she now felt, Nicole slid along the wall until she fell into her room. Her mother could still be heard talking, as if someone were there to feel sorry for her situation, a little way down the hall so she closed the door with her right foot and let it remain on the knob as she stared at her green and black conver. Her mother had gotten pretty temperamental before when she drank but this was the first time she had ever almost abused her. She looked down at the evidence on her arm. Another drink too many, only this time she had gone a little too far.
Only two feet or so away was her bed, so she grabbed for her rainbow pinstriped body pillow and afghan and curled into a tight ball on the floor. A little while later she was asleep, her mother’s rant still playing in her head.