Shooting Stars And Chemistry

"Mom, Dad, we need to talk." Alyssa began quite loudly.

She saw her parents exchange worried looks as they took in her "bizarre" appearance. She was standing in the middle of the living room wearing her favorite dress.

It was beautiful, long and flowing. The unique color looked as if she had taken a cloud from the sky as the sun set and wrapped it around her body. She looked like a gypsy as her long black hair cascaded freely down her back and she had a plaited leather band wound around her head. She had a packed knapsack at her side along with her converted rice-sack handbag.

If it were not for the scrupulously clean and oh-so-suburban surroundings she was standing in, she looked thoroughly bohemian.

In truth, this surrounding was indeed killing her, but let us continue with our story.

"What do you need to talk to us about?" Daphne said tentatively.

She had obviously recognized the symbolic packed bag at her daughters side.
The day had come, she thought, that she would finally fly the nest. Alyssa was using her favorite dress as her weapon as well as her comfort. She smiled as she thought of her daughter's lack of understanding of all she knew about her.

"You aren't thinking of leaving are you Alyssa?" John interjected as Alyssa opened her mouth.

Shushing her husband quietly Daphne motioned for Alyssa to continue.

"Well, I have come to realize that it is time I left this place. I have graduated school, and it may disappoint you to know that I have decided not to study law. I have been pushed around by you my whole teenage life, and to be quite honest, I need to leave before you decide to dominate my adult life also."

Daphne was taken aback by her daughter’s proclamation, as she had always believed that she had raised her daughter well. She never pushed the way the Mason’s at number twelve did; she never made her take those ballet lessons. She believed that children should be the ones to make their own decisions; she would simply guide and advise when she was needed. Her husband’s reaction made her realize exactly who this pressurizing parent was,

“But Al, we have always talked about Princeton for you! You were going to study there and take an apprenticeship at my firm! You cannot do this now after I pulled all those strings for you! You will not make me look the fool here!”

“No Dad! You always spoke about Princeton! I wanted to make you happy! I studied hard and kept my four point oh for you! But you know what? I am not going to waste my life on something that I can’t stand! I won’t!”

Daphne looked from her fuming husband to her petrified but proud looking daughter. She knew the best way to keep her family together was to…who was she kidding? She didn’t know what to do!

“Well, do you know where you want to go dear?” was the only reaction that she could come up with.

Alyssa stared at her mother, obviously shocked at the placid response. She was afraid that her mother may have cried at her announcement of leaving home, but she seemed to be taking it rather…well.

“Um, yes I do actually. I am going to go to New York to keep studying dancing. I want to become a…ballerina.”

Alyssa cast her eyes downwards as if she was ashamed of what she had just said. Daphne was not however ashamed in the slightest.
When she was a younger girl she wanted to become an actor on Broadway, but her parents flatly refused and she ended up marrying John some two years later after working as a secretary at his firm. On her mothers recommendation of course. She would be hypocritical to deny her daughters dream. It would just be ridiculous.

Letting out a derisive laugh John replied,

“Oh right, yes a ballerina. And how exactly do you intend to live in New York on a ballerina’s wage? You will never make it.”

Drawing herself up to her full height Alyssa said,

“Dad if I don’t at least try how can I ever know if I will make it or not? Do you expect me to waste my life at a family business like you? Didn’t you ever have a dream?”

John looked hurt for a moment, and then a dark flash of anger danced across his face.

“Yes I did. But you know what? I gave them up to do what was right and continue the family name. Morgan and Sons Attorneys of Law! Do you think I liked doing it at the time? No! But I had to provide for myself somehow!”

“This is why I have to leave! You don’t know me! I am not like you Dad! I can’t do that family honor crap! I am going and there is nothing that you can do that will stop me!”

With that Alyssa stormed out of her parents lives. She didn’t stop once to see the tears rolling down her mothers face, or the pained expression on her fathers.