Home pt2

Chase entered his bedroom, dropped his bag, and headed into the shower. Twenty minutes later, feeling refreshed, he took the time to tend to his wounds before his mother returned. After changing clothes, he grabbed his physics homework from his bag and started working on it. It was the only assignment he hadn't managed to finish earlier. Halfway through, he heard an engine revving and saw a grey sports car pulling into the garage. Recognising it as his mother's, he got up to open the door, hoping to get on her good side.

The car door slowly opened and an attractive dark blue haired woman appeared. She headed towards the door but Chase had already opened it before she could ring the doorbell and he stood in front of her trying to calm himself down.

"Welcome back mother." The greeting was joyful and pleasant but she barely glanced at him and quickly brushed past him.

"Welcome back, May!" Aunt Maria exclaimed happily, pulling her elder sister into a big hug. "I was wondering when you were going to return."

"Sorry," May responded apologetically, "The meeting took longer than expected."

May Tennyson (Maiden name: Pierce) was a stunning woman in her mid forties. She had light blue eyes and long light blue hair with a strand of hair falling over her left ear and she heavily resembled Maria. She worked as a CEO for a famous international company and was powerful but nowhere near her sister's level. She loved all her children but despised Chase and barely considered him as her son.

"Afternoon mother!" Lazuli and Lily shouted from the living room before appearing in the archway and embraced their mother.

"Hello there girls!" She enthusiastically said as she made her way up the stairs. "Let's catch up about your day over dinner."

The girls and Maria returned to the living room whilst Chase headed up to his bedroom after making sure that the front door was properly shut.

His room was located at the far right end of the second floor once you reached the top of the stairs. Lily's room was located in front of the stairs whilst Lazuli's was between hers and Chase's room which left their mother's room to be at the far left end of the corridor with the staircase leading to the attic.

Chase stepped inside his room, closed the door behind himself, sat at his desk and became engulfed in his homework. The time was 4:40pm and Chase had finally finished his homework. Lily entered his bedroom without knocking and told Chase to come downstairs in about ten minutes. He packed his books for tomorrow's lessons and laid on his bed scrolling through his phone's apps but got bored quickly so he decided to read.

"Chase!" Lily shouted, "Dinner's ready!"

"Don't shout Lily." May calmly said as Chase started to make his way down. "It's bad manners."

"Sorry." Lily replied.

Once Chase arrived at the dinner table, everyone was already seated so Chase took the empty seat at the head of the table next to Lily and Lazuli whilst their mother sat at the other head of the table and Maria sat next to Lily directly facing Lazuli. lobster, steak are spaghetti were laid out on the table and the kids served themselves and eagerly dug into their plates but eating with sophistication.

"So," May started, wiping her mouth and placing her fork next to her plate. "How was your day?"

"Good." The girls both replied but Chase remained silent.

"Anything interesting happen?"

"Oh yeah..." Lazuli started whilst she finished off her food and placed her fork down, "Another idiot asked me out." She said emotionlessly.

"You've pretty popular aren't you." Lily said as she poured herself a cup of water. "How does it feel to have boys fight over you."

"Pretty good if I do say so myself." Lazuli beamed, "It makes for a great laugh seeing all those boys do the most senseless things just to spend two seconds with me."

Lily pouted and drank her water silently prompting smiles and a few chuckles around the table.

"What about you Maria?" May asked, turning towards her sister.

"You know," she stated, "The usual".

"Please elaborate." May said as she looked at her sister with gleaming eyes. This was one of the things Maria disliked about her sister, always trying to make people talk. Maria hated being asked questions and hated talking more than she had to but her elder sister always knew how to get to her.

She silently groaned before talking, "You know, making sure that the school is going in the right direction, taking care of it, making sure that the teachers are happy, meeting the leaders of the world, -" She abruptly stopped herself, "That's all.". She was quite annoyed with herself for saying more than necessary which earned her another gleaming look of anticipation from her sister.

"No, I'm not telling you anymore." She said as she moved away from the table and placed her empty plate into the sink before pushing her chair back in and sitting on the couch to watch TV in the living room.

May smiled and turned towards the girls, "If you're finished eating you can go do what you want but leave your plates here, Chase will clean up the table, do the dishes and the rest of the housework."

"But I always do it." Chase thought but didn't say it out loud in fear of a beating. The girls left the table to join Maria in front of the TV, Lazuli was happy that she didn't have to do anything but Lily was feeling quite sorry for her brother and proposed to help him but May violently refused her offer. Chase hadn't quite finished his food yet but he couldn't eat in peace anymore because of the cold stares his mother was giving him.

Three minutes later, Chase had finished and cleaned up the table, putting all the dirty plates and utensils into the sink. May had moved away from the table and joined the ladies in front of the TV and they were watching some kind of soap opera or something.

Taking care of the dishes and other housework took up fifty minutes away his time. He hoped that his mother wouldn't realise that one of the bins hadn't been cleaned as he closed the French doors leading to the garden. He swiftly moved past his family but Maria caught him and gestured for him to come sit with them.

The sofas' layout was: The grey three seater lounger sofa was in the middle, a one seater grey sofa was on its right side, a two seater red sofa sat on its left and two blue bean bags were located at different ends of the living room.

Chase reluctantly sat on the bean bag at the far right side of the living room whilst the girls sat on the middle sofa. He had to sit through some boring soap opera for about forty minutes and was seriously about to dose off when the ending credits came on and Maria started talking.

"Wasn't bad." She said as she flicked through the other channels. "I didn't like when blah blah blah...."

Chase had stopped listening and had already left the room. Nobody seemed to have noticed nor did they ever. He headed inside his room and plopped himself on the bed, burying his head in the pillows and waiting for the hours to go by. He had no friends to talk to which made the days even longer and thinking about it made him sigh deeply. Five minutes later, someone knocked on the door and entered without waiting for an answer.

"Hey Chase." Maria softly said as she leaned across on the door. "You alright?"

Chase didn't answer but let out a small "uh huh" from beneath the pillows before turning over to look at his aunt. Maria sat on the bed near Chase, ruffled his hair for a bit before an embarrassed Chase placed his face back into the pillows. She chuckled and reached into her pocket.

"This is for you", She warmly said as she handed him 5000 crowns in cash for his allowance. He turned again to face her and accepted the cash that he was given whilst mumbling a thank you before turning on his back again.

"I hope that you didn't spend everything from last month's allowance." She said as she glanced across the room looking for something.

Chase didn't respond, causing Maria to sigh in disbelief for God knows the number of times she sighed that day.

"You got robbed again huh?" She asked, trying to sound kind. Since Chase didn't answer, she took that as a yes.

"Who did it?"

Chase turned and looked at his aunt before answering sourly, "People that I have no knowledge about."

And it was true. Chase was infamous across the country as the weakest boy ever: He got robbed on a weekly basis by students from his school but mostly random people on the road. Whilst all that was happening in public, nobody really cared and everyone went on with their day, occasionally snickering at him. Even the kids had no respect for him which was quite degrading and painful to watch.

"Well you should try standing up for yourself." Maria said, like it was the most obvious thing ever.

"Very funny aunt Maria", He sarcastically answered, "I tried it once in eighth grade but had ended up being tied at the back of a boat skidding across a lake and, in the middle of the journey, they had water boarded me for about 12 minutes before we finally came ashore and they let me go after paying them".

"We can talk about it." Maria said as she tried making herself feel like someone reliable enough for Chase to tell her about his problems. But Chase did not budge and kept to himself. Seeing as trying to make Chase talk was useless, Maria reassured Chase that if he wanted to talk about it she was always there for him and with that, she left.

Chase thought about what his aunt had told him but he made nothing out of it and found the sleep that he was looking for.