Who: Lily Fox When: Saturday night (after Luke has snuck out) Where: The Fox household What: Lily discovers her son isn't in his room Rating: PG
Knowing that she was going to be alone in the house tonight with her son had made Lily decide that maybe she should go up and draw him out of his room. Just because he couldn’t go out to the party that was apparently happening somewhere else didn’t mean that he had to be locked up in his room and antisocial the whole night.
She thought maybe he could come down, they could watch a movie or something. She did feel bad about grounding him, but they clearly needed to talk. She was worried: he’d been different recently, more withdrawn and she had been resisting the urge to check the journals, read through them and find out what was going on that had upset her son so much that his best friend turned up before nine thirty on a Sunday morning.
“Luke?” Lily called, knocking gently on the back of her son’s bedroom door with the back of her hand, “Honey?” It wasn’t often that she had to talk to him through the door, but it wasn’t uncommon for Alec to talk at an unresponsive Luke through the wooden panel. She knew she’d upset him by being the one to ground him, but it had been necessary. Besides, it wasn’t fair that Alec had to be the bad guy all the time, not when they both had an equal role in raising Luke. Besides, knowing about what had happened to Alex and Christine? Made her want to go upstairs and just hug her son until he begged her to let go of him. She could never imagine laying a hand on him, she could never imagine Alec laying a hand on him, or her, for that matter. She just wanted to remind Luke that she loved him.
She waited a couple of seconds to see if Luke was going to answer the door or let her in, and when it became apparent that he wasn’t, she just started speaking. “Honey, I know that you’re surprised you got grounded, and I’m sorry that you feel upset enough to hide out in here. I wanted to apologise for not giving you any warning. In hindsight we should have talked to you first and then told you of our decision to ground you. I realise that was unfair. You just need to understand... it’s hard. I’m so worried about you, we both are, and I don’t know how to get through to you right now. I wish you’d just talk to me. Are you having girl trouble? School trouble? I just want to help, sweetie, so please-” She sighed and rested her forehead against the door, her palm pressed flat against the wood. She imagined Luke on the other side, sat at his desk and listening, or bent furiously over a piece of paper, pencil scratching on the paper as he drew, letting the paper absorb his frustration. “You know we both love you, right?” she asked, “And we only ever want the best for you. And no matter what’s happening at the moment that’s making you confused or upset, you can come to me. I won’t judge you or tell you it’s stupid. I was a teenager once too, you know, I understand the horrors of teenage angst, the way that the world feels like it might fall apart. And I’m sure I could help if you’d just talk to me.” She wet her lower lip, “Come on, sweetie, just open up the door?”
No answer. Nothing on the other side of the door that would indicate he was listening to her.
“...Luke?” she tried again, hand on the doorknob as she opened the door. It revealed an empty room. Not even a note to tell her where he was going.
Guilt turned into panic and then anger, disappointment and hurt. Did he think them that awful that he had to sneak away? Sneak out? She’d never considered them to be that bad a parents. Maybe they were? She ran her hand across her face and pulled the door shut, going back downstairs and resisting the urge to text both her son and her husband.
Feet tucked beneath her, she hugged a pillow against her chest and grabbed the remote, Lily flicked away from the frozen image on the screen that read A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away to the regular terrestrial TV.