Casualties

Kennedy left school and Jack had told her that he wouldn’t need to get a ride home because he was leaving school early for a doctor’s appointment. She got to her car and drove home. Her mom’s car was there and Kennedy considered leaving and going somewhere for a few hours before setting foot into her house.
She sighed and got out of her car and walked into her house, “Hello!” she yelled and threw her bag down on the ground and took off her shoes.
Her mother appeared at the top of the stair case wearing a skirt, which she never usually wore, and a matching tank top. Kennedy was surprised to see her mother look this way – like she was a fifties house wife because that was never how her mother had been before.
“Hi, honey,” she said in a sweet voice. Kennedy was literally scared for a minute because this was not her mother; this was a Stepford version of her mother.
“What are you wearing?” Kennedy finally asked with disgust in her voice.
Her mom looked down at her clothes and laughed, “Kennedy, you know I love skirts like these,” she said and put her hand on Kennedy’s forearm.
“What is wrong with you?” Kennedy asked and stepped back from her mother.
“Kennedy,” her mother started, ignoring Kennedy’s comment, “there’s someone I want to introduce you to,” she said with a smile plastered onto her face. Lorelei took Kennedy by her arm and dragged her into the kitchen where she saw a tall man, probably around 6’4”, with blondish hair and bright green eyes sitting. He was firm like he worked out at least three times a week.
“Hello, Kennedy,” he said in a pleasant voice and she guessed that he was a business man, the ones meant to persuade other companies into deals.
“Hi, nice to meet you…,” she said waiting for either her mother or him to give her his name.
“Kennedy, this is Rob, my fiancé,” her mother said and Kennedy smiled until she comprehended what her mother had just told her.
“Wait, your fiancé?” Kennedy asked.
“Yes, that’s why I wanted you to meet him,” her mom said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“But shouldn’t I have met him before you got engaged?” Kennedy asked because it made perfect sense to her that that’s what a person would do, but Lorelei was not a regular person, she liked to do things her own way.
“Kennedy, don’t be silly. That’s why you’re meeting him now,” Lorelei said, placing her hand on Kennedy’s back.
“So when’s the wedding?” Kennedy asked.
“Not for a while, sweetie. Rob and I wanted to live together for a while before we actually set a date,” Lorelei said, moving from Kennedy’s side to Rob’s.
“So he’s moving in with us?” Kennedy asked, she should have expected this.
“Well, no, not exactly,” Lorelei said, and Kennedy could tell that she hit a nerve. Lorelei didn’t want to tell Kennedy because Kennedy would be mad and argue with her.
“Then what?” Kennedy asked, confused.
“Well, Rob lives in New York and he wants us to move back out there with him,” Lorelei told her, Rob remaining completely silent.
Kennedy waited a minute because she could tell that her mother was gauging her reaction. “So let me get this straight, you move me here, to Hicksville Maryland, so that I can get a better education because when we lived in New York the first time the education was awful and there were gangs everywhere, but now you want to move me back to that even though I’ve developed a life here already? Is that right?” Kennedy asked and she was getting pissed.
“Something like that, but it would be different this time,” her mother said, lurching forward.
“Oh really? And why’d that?” Kennedy asked being sarcastic but her mother didn’t pick up on it.
“Because we’d be living on the Upper East Side and you’d be going to a private school to get a better education and you wouldn’t really need to worry about gangs there,” Lorelei said as though it were obvious.
“Why are you doing this? I don’t want to leave. I’m a year away from graduating; can’t you wait until then to move out with him?” Kennedy said.
“What you’re not understanding, kiddo-” Rob started, but Kennedy cut him off.
“Don’t you dare call me kiddo,” she said, pointing a finger at him.
He put his hands up as though her were surrendering, “Sorry. What you’re not understanding, though, is that your mother and I are in love. I’ve been here for this month because of work, but I need to go back to New York and I want her to come with me and if she comes with me than that means you, too,” he told her, wrapping an arm around Lorelei’s waist.
“I understand perfectly, I just want to stay here,” she told them both.
“Why don’t we go out to dinner and then we’ll talk about it then?” Rob asked.
“Dinner? It’s only, like, three o’clock,” Kennedy said.
“Actually honey, it’s almost seven,” Lorelei said in a worried voice.
Kennedy looked at the clock and low and behold it said that it was four minutes to seven o’clock. “Sure, let’s go to dinner,” she said and put her shoes back on. “I’ll take my own car,” she informed then and she got in her own car and waited for them to get into his. She followed them to a restaurant and parked right next to them.
The ate dinner, discussed the options, but Lorelei of course wanted to keep Kennedy with her while she was still in school so the decision came to be what it had been before; Kennedy and her mother would be moving to New York in a few days with Rob and living in pent house with him.
“I’ll meet you guys back home,” Kennedy told them and got into her car. Lorelei and Rob pulled out first but Kennedy didn’t want to go home.
There was only place on her mind where she wanted to go and she was going to go there.