Pinhole
Copyright© 2022 by Fanlon
Chapter 17
Mom was livid. This was by far the angriest I had ever seen her. She was so furious that I could see her body trembling. Her hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly that I was afraid she was going to rip it right off the column. What made it even creepier, was that she was driving slowly. To any of the other cars around us, she would look perfectly normal and calm, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth—at least not from where I was sitting.
Mom didn’t say a word, or even look in my direction the entire way home. When she parked the minivan in the garage, she finally looked over at me for a second and not a moment more.
“Get inside and go straight to your room and stay there.”
I slinked out of the car and slipped inside and up the stairs. Dad was sitting on the couch, his back to me watching TV while I moved as quickly and quietly as I could past him and into my room. I leaned my back against the closed door and tried to breathe. I had made a mistake, a horrible, awful mistake.
“Joshua, get out here now. Your father and I need to talk to you!” I heard Mom yell from the living room. Shit! “Don’t make me call for you again! Get your butt out here pronto, Mister!”
Knowing that if I delayed any more than I already had, would just be asking for a lot more severe punishment. I opened my door and looked down the hall towards where Mom and Dad were waiting in the living room. I couldn’t see either of them and I couldn’t hear them either. All I could hear was the pounding of my heart in my ears.
When I walked to the living room, I stopped at the end of the hallway. I kept my head down but glanced to where Mom and Dad were sitting on the loveseat. Dad was leaning back, like this was no big deal, but Mom was ringing her hands over and over in obvious discomfort.
“Come over here and let me see what you did,” Dad said, his voice level, calm.
I did as he asked, and he looked at one ear and then the other before looking me in the eyes.
“What made you think it would be a good idea to pierce your ears, Josh?” I just shrugged in answer as my shoulders remained slumped with my head down. “That’s not good enough. Tell me why.”
“Because...” I started to answer him, but I was embarrassed. “Because Laura was getting hers pierced again and she told me I would look cool if I did it too.”
“Would you go jump off a cliff if she said it would be cool!” Mom snapped, and I immediately shook my head. That’s the stupidest thing ever, of course I wouldn’t jump off a cliff!
“At least the studs are in the middle of your earlobes. They don’t look bad really,” Dad told me and winked.
“It was pretty stupid,” I admitted, and he nodded. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to your mom,” Dad told me quietly.
“I’m really sorry, Mom,” I said to her, but she didn’t even flinch a reply at first.
“You better keep those clean. I am not going to help you if you get an infection.” Mom grumbled.
I moved over in front of her and bent down to give her a hug. She didn’t return it at first, but she did squeeze me back after a few seconds.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, and she hugged me tightly.
“Think before you do something stupid like that because of a girl, okay?”
“I know, you’re right. I will.”
“Alright Josh, go back to your room and finish your homework,” Dad announced, and I pulled away from Mom, but she didn’t let go right away.
“Good night,” I said and headed back to my room.
It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized I might have ruined my chances at meeting up with Dana tonight. We were supposed to go take Katie’s picture and if Mom were still mad, there was a high likelihood they would tell me I was grounded.
“Dad, can I go out with Dana tonight?” I asked Dad as he read the morning paper at the kitchen table.
“What are you and Dana going to be doing?” he asked without looking away from his paper.
“Taking a couple pictures for my portfolio for Mr. Watts. Just like I did last week.”
“And Dana is in your class?” When I didn’t answer right away, Dad lowered his paper and gave me a questioning look. I can’t tell him what we are really doing, then I really will get in trouble.
“She isn’t in my class, no. She is my partner though. Mr. Watts approved it.”
That was all true, so it wasn’t like I was lying.
“So, if I call your teacher, that’s what he is going to tell me?” I nodded right away. “Talk to your mom; if she says it’s okay, then it’s fine with me.”
I was surprised when Mom stopped me to check my ears before we got in the car. She looked at both of them and seemed happy, all things considered.
“Did you clean those this morning? They aren’t all red anymore, so that’s good. Have you been turning them like you are supposed to?”
Turning them, what is she talking about? I had cleaned them, just as I was told to do by the girl at Claire’s, but I had no idea what turning them meant.
“Josh, you are supposed to turn or spin those. It keeps the stud from sticking to the skin.”
“Oh!” I gasped, I didn’t know I was supposed to do that, but I had been doing it as if it were my nervous tick. “I have been playing with them.”
“You better be,” she said, it didn’t sound like she believed me at all. “Come on, it’s time for you to go to school.”
I was going to ask Mom about going out with Dana, but I thought it would be better to wait until after school. The last thing I wanted was for her to tell me no this morning and then I would have to tell Dana and that was not something I wanted to do. I devised a plan that I assumed would be okay, which was to have Dana show up tonight to pick me up. There was no way Mom was going to say no to Dana. If anything, I thought Dana would be able to convince Mom into letting me go out with her.
I met Laura outside of school. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but the reaction I got was her being shy and uncertain. We didn’t hold hands or anything. She just said hello and gave me a small smile which I returned eagerly.
“So, are you taking Katie’s picture tonight?”
“How did you know that?”
“Girl talk...” I just rolled my eyes in answer.
I knew that was true. There was nothing off limits in girl talk. Not that it was fair for us guys, but it’s also not like there is something we could do about it either. Laura and I walked through the front doors side by side and of course, Dana was right there waiting for me the moment I walked in.
“Hey, Josh,” Dana smiled big and bright.
Usually, Laura would make some comment under her breath about Dana and keep walking but this time she stood right there next to me.
“Not going to say hello to me?” Laura asked, with a bit of cattiness in her tone.
“Umm, hi?” Dana sounded unsure of herself, which was odd.
“I’ll see you later, Josh,” Laura said, giving me a big smile and a hug that caught me completely off guard.
“Bye...” I didn’t need to say anything, she was already well out of ear shot when I finally got my faculties back in order.
“What’s going on with you two?” Dana asked, looking at me and then watching Laura’s back as she walked away.
“It’s nothing...” Yet.
“Whatever, so tonight. Do you have an idea for Katie?”
“Not really, I don’t know what she wants.”
“I will ask her this morning and let you know at lunch, if that’s okay with you and your little friend.”
“Hey, that’s not nice.”
“What?”
“You know what. Be nice to her.”
“Ugh, fine. I’ll let you know what I find out at lunch, okay?”
“Sounds good.” Dana smiled and then headed off to her first period class as I made my way to Mrs. Peterson’s class.
To say I was on edge in Mrs. Peterson’s class was an understatement. Every time her eyes even looked remotely in my direction my heart started pounding. On top of that, she seemed to call on me with every question she asked the class. She had never done that in the past. Sure, she had asked me a few times, but not every single question. She knows, oh my god, she knows!
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