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So, look. Troy’s just a teensy bit past curfew.
Not by much.
Okay, by three hours.
It’s fine, really.
As long as he doesn’t get caught, that is.
Troy’s a good kid. Really. He likes to think so, at least. He’s a solid A/B student. Manages work and school and two extra curriculars. He helps his dad with the yard work, helps his mom with the groceries. Sure, he might have his fair share of disagreements with his dad, but what teenager doesn’t? His parents really couldn’t ask for a better son if you ask him.
So really, he was due for a little bit of rule breaking.
(Does it count as rule breaking if he doesn’t get caught? He hopes it’s kind of a moot point.)
No time like the present, he tells himself, as he cautiously pulls the door handle on his truck. He tries to be quiet, as though his parents will be able to hear the creak from inside the house. (Inside the house, where they’re hopefully sleeping soundly through any noise he might make.)
He hops out and shuts the door behind him as quietly as he’d opened it. There’s no way he’s chancing the front door—his parents are definitely in bed already, but he’d have to walk right past their bedroom to get to his own, and the noise might wake them. Or worse, they’re still awake reading or something, and then he would definitely be in trouble. That’s just not a chance he feels like taking. Instead, he makes his way around the house to the backyard.
There’s a little part of him that feels guilty about abusing their trust like this. His curfew is after they go to bed every night—a combination of their early bedtime and his generously late weeknight curfew. There’ve been many nights that he strolled in right at 10:59 just to find the living room empty and their bedroom door closed. He even tested it one night, coming in at 11:01 just to see what they would do. He half expected alarm bells to start ringing, and he’d felt guilty when they never acknowledged his late arrival the next day.
If he thought he felt guilty then…
He really didn’t mean to break curfew tonight.
Genuinely.
Well…
For the most part.
It’s just… He’s a teenage boy and his girlfriend’s mom is out of town. They kind of lost track of time.
They really really really lost track of time.
As a kid, he never really much cared that his bedroom had a door that led directly to the back porch. Yeah, it was cool and all, but it was child-proofed well past the age that it was necessary, so he never really used it, and once the lock came off, it was just kind of… there.
Nowadays, he mostly just uses it for convenience, or occasionally to sneak over to Chad’s when he doesn’t want his parents knowing. Somehow, he feels like breaking curfew to be with Gabriella is a lot different than breaking curfew to hang with Chad. And if he feels that way, he knows that his parents will think so, too.
None of the lights are on in the house—just the one above the stove and a couple other dim ones that are always left on.
Huh, Troy thinks. He could get away with this every night.
No, no, no. That’s not what he wants to tell himself. Breaking curfew is wrong and Troy is a good kid. He gives himself a pass to sneak off to Chad’s, but not Gabriella’s. He doesn’t like lying to his parents, much as he enjoys the benefits.
He eases the door open and tiptoes inside, shutting the door behind himself. The door to the rest of the house is closed. He closes his eyes and lets out a breath—he’s in the clear. Even if his parents heard him and come in at this point, he can play it off. He couldn’t sleep or something. His shoes are on because he wanted to kill time in his treehouse. They’d believe it—they’ve seen him up there enough nights looking at the stars or working on homework.
That being said, he kicks off his shoes for an easier alibi, and he—
“You have a good night?”
Troy whips his head to the left, only to see his dad sitting at the desk in his room.
He stares bewildered for a moment before asking, “What are you doing in my room?”
His dad looks at him like he’s an idiot. “Really? You think you’re in the position to be asking questions here?”
Troy dumbly fumbles for an answer. His dad spares him from saying something else stupid.
“It’s two o’clock, Troy. I know math isn’t your best subject, but I think even you can tell that two a.m. is after eleven at night.” His dad fixes him with a glare, and his voice raises from “pretending to be casual” to “wholly pissed” in about five seconds. “You’re three hours past curfew, Troy. Where were you?”
Now, Troy has two options. He can lie and say he was at Chad’s, or he could tell the truth. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that his dad will know if he lies, but if he tells the truth, there’s a one hundred percent chance he gets grounded for the next six months.
He goes with the fifty-fifty.
“I was at Chad’s,” he says casually.
He loses the coin flip.
“Try again.”
Troy looks at him like a deer in the headlights. He’s rarely rendered speechless, and he really isn’t a fan of it under these circumstances. This would be a lot easier to talk his way out of if he knew what intel his dad has, though he kind of suspects that would defeat the whole point of the questioning.
“I called Chad’s parents two hours ago. They had no clue what I was talking about when I asked if you were there. So, try again.”
“We were in his room. They must not have—”
“I strongly advise you to consider your words carefully—” The look on his dad’s face makes Troy’s blood run cold. “—Because I asked them if they were sure you weren’t there, and they went up to Chad’s room to check. Now, don’t make me ask again, Troy.”
It’s not often that Troy’s dad is well and truly pissed at him. Sure, he gets frustrated with him on a near weekly basis, and Troy’s been the recipient of many of his dad’s annoyed lectures. But this is a whole other level of mad.
Troy’s not an idiot—he knows when he’s fucked.
And boy, is he fucked.
“I was at Gabriella’s,” he admits quietly.
His dad looks off and nods slowly—he knew the answer all along, Troy immediately realizes. Lying was pointless to begin with.
Neither of them speak for a moment—Troy too scared to, and his dad taking his time to consider his words carefully. Troy can hear his own heart beating in his ears.
“Do I want to ask what you were doing with Gabriella for three hours while her mom is out of town?”
“How did you know her mom—?”
His dad looks at him like he’s an idiot. In his dad’s defense, Troy feels like an idiot right about now.
“Not the point, Troy. What were you doing there?”
Troy fumbles again. “Um…”
“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.” He runs his hand over his face.
Troy doesn’t move, doesn’t say a word. If this were a chess game, he’d be well in check, looking for the one move to get him out. Really, if he’s being honest with himself, he’s probably already lost the game.
There’s an uncomfortable silence while Troy waits for his dad to say something. “Were you being safe?”
“Dad,” Troy says indignantly.
The glare he receives back implies that he’s not going to dodge the question.
“Yes,” he mutters through clenched teeth.
“You drive Gabriella home almost every day after school. Her mom works late. I can put two and two together, Troy. Why the hell do you feel the need to come home at two in the morning, lying about where you’ve been? Huh?”
Troy’s not sure if that’s rhetorical or not.
“I think eleven is a pretty lenient curfew for a school night. Don’t you? And you can’t even manage that.”
“It was one time, Dad. We lost track of time.”
“By three hours?!”
Troy looks away. He refuses to admit his dad has a point.
“Your mother was about to send out a damn search party when you weren’t home at one. You’re lucky I told her I’d handle it.”
Troy doesn’t exactly feel lucky right now.
He might have had better luck with the search party.
“How’d you know I wasn’t home?” he has to ask. “I come home after you’re in bed all the time.”
That comment earns him an incredulous look. “Yeah, and we come make sure you’re home every night.”
That surprises Troy. He’s a little offended they feel the need to check on him like a child. “You don’t trust me?”
“Are you—? Really? Trust you? At what point tonight have you shown us that we can trust you?”
Okay, that’s another point for his dad.
“When I realized you were going to be a while,” his dad continues, looking none too happy, “I figured I might as well get these papers graded.” He holds up a stack of papers, red marks scribbled all over the top sheet. “Thanks for letting me borrow your desk,” he tacks on sarcastically.
Troy rolls his eyes. “Anytime.”
“Where’s your phone?”
Troy about gets whiplash from the change in topic. “Huh?”
The look his dad is giving him annoys him—like he thinks Troy’s an idiot. “Your phone. That blue thing with the buttons that you’re always using to talk to your girlfriend.”
Troy stops himself from rolling his eyes this time. He sees where this is going now.
“My pocket…”
“Oh, so you do have it on you. I wasn’t sure, you see, since you didn’t answer the eleven phone calls I made to you. Those phone calls weren’t meant to be optional, Troy.”
Troy hesitates before responding. “It’s dead. I forgot to charge it.”
“Can I see it?” his dad says. It’s not a question.
Troy sighs and hands it over.
“You won’t need it for a while,” he tells him, putting it in his own pocket, “or your keys for that matter.” He holds his hand out again, and Troy reluctantly hands over his keys.
“How am I supposed to get to school?”
“Well, you’ve got two options. I can drive you—”
Troy sighs.
“—Or you can take the bus.”
“For how long?” Troy asks. He probably shouldn’t have the nerve to be annoyed, but seriously? That truck is his. Never mind the fact that it was his dad that gave it to him—it’s his little break from the world.
Troy’s dad doesn’t care much about those concerns, evidently, as he gets increasingly annoyed with Troy’s questions. “I haven’t decided yet, Troy. How’s three weeks sound? One week for each hour you were late.”
Sure, if Troy was being honest with himself, that’s honestly not the worst punishment his dad could dish out, but he’s not being honest with himself, so it doesn’t seem fair at all. “Fine,” he bites out.
He and his dad look at each other. Troy knows he’s in the wrong. He does. But, you know, he’s a good kid and all. One missed curfew doesn’t seem like it justifies a whole three-week grounding period.
But there’s no way he’s convincing his dad of that.
He could try winning his mom over in the morning—it’s worked before. But there’s the unfortunate fact that those three hours he was late were spent with Gabriella. (Well, it’s unfortunate now as a defense—it certainly wasn’t unfortunate in the moment.) He doubts he could appeal to her good side considering that.
That whole “my baby is growing up” thing that parents do? Where they overreact at the slightest “grown up” thing that their kid does? Yeah, his mom’s a pro at that.
And oh, god, is this going to be a whole thing? Is his dad going to give him a whole talk about the fact that he was at Gabriella’s house doing exactly what his dad thinks he was doing? At two in the morning, no less? He’s sat through his dad’s talks more times than he’d really like.
(Okay, it was like two times, but it was more than plenty from his perspective, alright?)
He really doesn’t want another talk.
But then his dad sighs, his jaw clenched, and looks down at the stray papers on the desk. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, seeming to contemplate the whole situation. After what feels like eons to Troy, he gathers his things and stands. “Troy…” he says. “You’re better than this.”
And with that, his dad clasps him on the shoulder as he leaves the room.
His dad knows him too well.
He knows exactly what to say to make Troy really feel guilty.
Troy’s a people-pleaser by nature. He measures himself, whether he wants to or not, against everyone else’s expectations. Knowing that his dad is disappointed in him—and worse, knowing that it’s maybe just a little justified—is harsh.
And maybe that’s why he loves Gabriella so much—the one person he feels that he can be himself around.
Which really makes it sting that he’s grounded. He really wants to call her right now.
He could press his luck and sneak out on his skateboard, but something (everything) tells him that’s probably a bad idea.
He changes into pajamas and flops unceremoniously back onto his bed.
His mind races, trying to ignore the guilt.
But by the time he falls asleep, though, one thought prevails in his mind.
A whole unsupervised night with his girlfriend?
Nine straight hours after racing to her house after school?
Totally worth it.