I am the Skeleton in the Closet

Falling Dominoes

I kept my nose out of it for a little while after that. I had already started the line of dominos and they had ever so happily fallen just as I expected and hoped. It wasn't much more than a month before the parents were completely done with him. Dawn had been trying to get him to look into apartments so that he could leave the basement. That's all she or Steven really wanted at this point. He had talked them into paying for his college yet again and was now looking at getting a place near the university he had chosen. He picked an expensive private school down in Detroit for arts and the like. Alex was all jazzed about it. It wasn't long before he found the apartment of his dreams. The building was an old hotel with a gothic theme. There were lion pedestals out the front on the stairs and gargoyles further up to match. Overall the place was rather small and definitely not somewhere where I would want to live, but we had always been opposites. The issue between Alex and the parents then became about getting him to resign from the housing he had already been accepted for on campus. I listened when Dawn needed to rant, but I never offered any advice in return, all I wanted at this point was to be in the loop without being involved. Not a month later, and just before school started, did things really blow up. I guess one day he broke down due to back pain and demanded the parents drive him to the emergency room. He called me shortly after the parents had left him.

"Ugh, it's Alex." I scrunched up my nose as Austin picked out his next club.

"What's it want?" He asked lining up the shot on the fairway.

"If I knew I wouldn't answer, but I'm still playing the perfect daughter... so." I answered the phone. "What's up?"

"Um, so... oh where do I begin... My dad just kicked me out of the house." Alex started.

"What?!" I was both pleased and confused. I think didn't that would happen so quickly.

"What?" Austin asked after hitting the ball way off.

"Steven kicked Alex out." I explained.

"Oh, about time." He squinted under the sun and I threw him another ball from the cart.

"Sorry, Austin and I are out golfing. What happened?"

"Oh no worries. So I was in my apartment and my back, well, you know I have a bad back." He started.

"Yeah, that's why you couldn't do it a few years ago." I slyly jabbed. "Go on."

"Yeah, so. My back was in so much pain this morning that I literally couldn't get out of bed. So I called the parents and, I mean you know what they do. Suck it up. Just deal with it. You're not really in pain, you just want the attention."

"Yeah." I rolled my eyes. Not to me, but I'm not known for wanting attention.

"Yeah, so they were doing that, but eventually I got them to take me to the ER and my dad is just yelling at me the entire time. Stop exaggerating, stop over playing it, it can't really hurt that bad."

"Right."

"Even when we were going in, they were drawing attention in the parking lot and everything. He didn't want to get me a wheelchair or anything. So I had to walk in, and I dropped my wallet and my license came out. So he just starts yelling at me and freaking out because apparently I'm picking it up too slowly. And I'm like, I'm in PAIN, what do you want from me? Sorry I can't move my BACK to get my LICENSE because I can't MOVE at all." He was almost yelling through the phone now.

You probably were. I rolled my eyes driving us to the next hole. "Ok?"

"And we finally get there and I get called back and they want to give me an IV and my mom keeps trying to get them to stick it in the arm we both know doesn't go easy in. Like no you need it in this arm. Please, I'm a nurse, it needs to go in this arm. She doesn't know what she's talking about. It goes in this arm. But I get the nurse to put it in the correct arm finally."