The Perfect 146

Posted by adminj, ? Views, Released on January 23, 2025

Chapter 127

Gabriel – Aged 16.

I flick my pen as I stare down at the essay I’m trying to write. What’s another word for catastrophe? Umm, problem, mishap, disaster…. I frown as I try to concentrate.

English, my mortal enemy.

My mom walks up the hallway and then turns around and walks back, she’s in her pink dressing gown and has been pacing back and forth for over an hour now.

I glance at my watch, 9 p.m…..

Where is he?

I drag my attention back to my schoolwork, another word for catastrophe…umm….

From the corner of my eye I see my mother pick up her phone and call my father, I pretend

not to listen as I stare at my work.

“Hello,” she says. “Where are you?” She listens for a beat. “Again?” She listens again. “You

couldn’t call me to let me know?”

I hear the hurt in her voice and my stomach twists.

“I’m here with your children waiting for you to come home, where else would I be?” she

whispers angrily.

He says something as she listens intently. “Yes I know you have a lot of pressure on you,” she says as her voice softens. “I know it’s not your fault. I just miss you, that’s all. We need you at home with us, can’t you work from your office here at night?”

I can hear his voice as he talks to her but I can’t hear what he’s saying.

“Yeah.” She sighs. “Okay.” She listens again. “I’ll be asleep by then. I guess it’s good night. I

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love you.” She hangs up with a deep exhale and looks over at me. “I’m going to get going to Ded, Gabriel.” She walks over to stand behind me and puts her hands onto my shoulders as she looks down at my work. “You should call it a night too, darling.”

“Okay, just going to finish this essay first. I won’t be long, I promise.”

She kisses my forehead and rubs her hand through my hair, “You’re such

a hardworking boy. Do you know how much I love you?”

I smile. “Good night, Mom, I love you too.”

She disappears up the stairs as I stare after her. I drag my eyes back to my essay but my mind wanders to my father and to what the hell is going on with him lately, why does he

work back at the office all the time now?

He’s the CEO, he gets to decide where he works from…and yet he would rather be at the office. What the hell is so good about the office anyway?

Annoyed, I turn my attention back to my essay.

I get a vision of him sitting at his desk in the deserted office building, working so hard to support our family, and the pressure he must feel, and guilt fills me.

I need to get the best marks I can at school, I pick up my pen and get back to work.

I want to make him proud.

Gabriel – Aged 17.

Bang.

I wake with a start to hear muffled voices arguing.

My bedroom is dark and I roll over and pick up my phone, 2.20 a.m.

Who’s arguing at this time of the morning? I get up and go to the bathroom and I can hear

my mother’s raised voice.

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What’s going on?

Topen my bedroom door and walk down the hallway and around the corner to my parents‘

wing. Their bedroom door is closed and the light is peeking out from under it but I can hear

raised voices through it.

What are they arguing about?

Creeping closer, I stand beside the door in the darkness so I can listen.

“You tell me, you tell me right now why your work shirt smells like perfume?” my mother

shrieks.

“I have no idea,” my father replies. “Obviously when I hugged Marie today for her birthday

she was wearing perfume.” “You’re lying!” she screams.

“I’m too tired for your fucking dramatics tonight,” my father growls.

“Tired from what?” my mother snaps. “From all the work you’re doing at

2 a.m.” She screams, “Who the hell is she?”

“Go to sleep,” my father demands. “I’m not in the mood for this shit.”

“You’re not in the mood for this shit?” my mother explodes. “Maybe I’m not in the mood for

your shit.”

“Then don’t put up with it,” he yells. “If you’re so unhappy fucking leave.”

“Are you or are you not having an affair?” my mother yells.

“If you even have to ask that then you don’t know me at all,” he yells back.

“That’s the point,” she screams. “I don’t know you at all anymore. You’re never home, you’re always working late at the office.”

“To support you and this fucking family!” he cries. “I’ve just worked a seventeen–hour day and and now I come home to this fucking bullshit. I’m sleeping in the spare room. I’ve had

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enough of you.” Shit.

Fuck around the corner and hide and he comes marching out with his pillow and disappears down the hall.

I wait until he’s gone and I walk back to peer into my mother’s room, she’s sitting alone on the side of her bed crying. I watch her for a minute, unsure what to do, but eventually I walk in and sit down beside her and put my arm around her shoulders. “Don’t cry, Mom,” I tell her. “It’s okay.”