'Cause the Hardest Part of This is Leaving You.

She hardly waits for me to out of the car before shoving me up the path an through the front door. She pushes me into the lounge. " Sit down. " she says, her blonde hair swaying.
I sit on the sofa and she sits opposite me in the armchair. The journey home seems to have wound her up. She looks mad and breathless, as if she hasn't slept for weeks and is capable of anything.

" What the hell are you doing, Gerard? "

" Nothing. "

" You call shoplifting nothing? You disappear all afternoon, you don't leave a note or anything, and you think that doesn't matter? " She wraps her arms about herself, as if she were cold and we are to sit like this for a bit. I can hear the clock ticking. When she speaks again, she does it very carefully, as if she want's to get the words out just right.

" There are somethings you are entitled to. There are some rules we can stretch for you, but there are somethings that you can want all you like and you're still not having. "

I laugh. It sounds like glass falling from somewhere very high. It surprises me. Something is bottled up and It's making me heave deeps breaths. Heaving something like a volcano exploding in the garden. But all that happens it that Mom hugs herself closer, which is what she always does when she get's upset, it's like she's turning into herself.

And then she says, " Keep huffing, Gerard. What happens if anger takes you over? Who will you be then? What will be left of you? "

And I say nothing, just look at the dark curtains and the sunlight peaking through and a burst at my feet.