FicWad

Molly just stared at Patrick, the lump in her throat made her uncapable of answering him. Her lower lip started trembling at the pain she saw on his face. He stood up and turned around pacing in front of the bench. He seemed like he couldn't decide between hurt and anger. The tears she thought she had finally stopped started falling again. Bringing her hands up to her mouth she tried to muffle the sob that escaped.
"Please don't be mad at me too." She asked him softly trying in vain to stop crying.
"What am I supposed to be Molly? You just told me that your parents told you you couldn't be friends with me anymore and that you were going along with it. Am I supposed to be happy?"
"No...." she trailed off slowly, "but please understand. I don't have a choice."
"BULL. shit." Patrick snapped out, "You always have a choice."
"They'll kick me out. They won't pay for college. And they were not bluffing. Daddy never bluffs."
"So come live with me. My mom likes you."
"Oh yea and its as simple as that is it?"
"Yup. We've got a spare room. You've got good grades. Scholarships and loans for college." Patrick stated as though it was the easiest decision in the world.
"What about my brothers?" Molly asked him bluntly.
"I'm sure you can visit them. I only live six blocks away from you."
"....you don't get it." Molly said wiping her face off with her sleeve. "You just don't get it."
"Ok fine! Then help me to understand Molly. What's the big fuckng deal that you won't talk about. I seem to remember another conversation we had a few weeks ago that got cut off really fast on your end because you didn't want to reveal too much that wasn' t my business. Well suffice to say I think it was just made my business tonight. Because from where I'm standing all it looks to me like is that you decided to become a little society clone of your mother like she wants." Patrick finished and sat back down next to Molly turning to face her on the bench.
'If I tell him he either understands or he doesn't. either way, I'm loosing my friend.' Molly examined Patrick's face and stared him right in the eyes. After a minute or so she took a deep breath and told him her story.
"When I was twelve years old my mother was diagnosed with having Bi-Polar NOS. Which basically means that she's bi-polar but it doesn't have any of the normal symptom patterns. essentially its unpredictable. She has a pretty bad case. The doctors are pretty sure she always had it, God knows the woman was always moody, but then after she had Jamie it seemed to blossom into a much more extreme case. Suddenly she wouldn't get out of bed for days at a time, and then suddenly she would be up and everything needed to be perfect. She hasn't spoken a truly kind word to me since it got bad. I'm used to it I guess. Hell I practically raised Jamie myself. After Mom's diagnosis Dad started working extreme hours in the procecuters office. Then two years ago like I told you they really started fighting. Mom was in and out of the hospital, she's tried to kill herself about four times in the past two years, and my Dad decided to move us to a gated private community in the ritzier areas of long island."
Patrick just stared as Molly took a deep breath to continue her explanation.
"The reason my parents fight so much is because even with medication my mother is still pretty erratic, we have to watch her like a hawk to make sure she takes her pills every day. Its like she doesn't want to be stabalized. And I don't want to drug my mother in anyway, but she can get violent when she's in an extreme state, either manic or depressive, both towards herself and others."
"Molly...that shouldn't be your responsibility." Patrick interrupted staring in horror at his friend.
"Well then whose should it be? You want me to lock my mother up? Do you? Put her someplace with padded walls and have her pumped full of all sorts of sedatives and go and visit her once a month or something?" Molly started ranting getting incredibly aggitated over the idea.
"No. No. I'm sorry I didn't mean it that way." Patrick rebutted, "I just think maybe a nurse, or your father could actually do something. You aren't Sean and Jamie's parent."
"He does. He pays the bills, I take care of things around the house. That's the way it is Patrick. It's a simple fact of life. And that's why I can't hang out with all of you anymore. Someone needs to watch Mom and Jamie. Sean is too young to take on that kind of responsibility yet."
"No. You are too young for it." Patrick insisted in a frustrated tone.
"I knew you wouldn't get it." Molly said shaking her head and laughing to herself. 'Who was I kidding? No one ever understands. Family has to stick together.' Molly thought to herself as she stood up to head home her decision made finally.
"Where are you going?" Patrick asked almost panicked as he did a double take and suddenly realized she wasn't sitting next to him anymore.
"Home."
"What WHY?!"
"I already explained this to you Patrick. and if you can't understand that then I don't know what else to tell you." Molly said in a very detatched tone of voice.
"Molly. This is ridiculous. You are being stupid."
"No. I'm being loyal. Something I'm very good at."
"Yea I can see how well you are displaying your loyalty by dropping all of us like a bad habit at the first sign of conflict or any deeper attachment. Something else you learned from your parents huh? How to run away from connections?"
"Now what are you going on about?"
"Just that. Listen to yourself. You sound like a fucking robot. Just like Mommy and Daddy programmed you to sound. If you can honestly turn your back on people who took you in like they had been friends with you their whole lives then maybe I don't want you in my life anyway. Maybe this is a good thing."
"Maybe it is. Good bye Patrick. Oh and do me a favor, don't tell anyone what I told you about my parents." With those final words Molly turned around and walked away from the boy standing in the middle of the park with a look of total rage on his face. She heard the thunk of a second rock hitting another tree from behind her and forced herself to keep her eyes forward and to keep walking.
When Molly arrived home about ten minutes later she walked inside and glanced at the living room where a single light was on. Her father was sitting in his recliner reading a book. When he heard the door open he looked up, took off his reading glasses and just simply said,
"Well?"
"It's done." Molly said with steel in her voice.
"Good. You made the right decision. Life will be much easier this way now. Don't forget tomorrow to get your mother's prescription refilled on the way home from school and if it wouldn't be too much trouble I'd like meatloaf for dinner." Jack O'Conell finished his sentence and put his glasses back on before turning back to his book obvilously thinking he had properly dismissed his daughter.
Molly just stared at her father wondering when he had changed from Daddy to Jack in her mind. When her whole world had become about holding her family together instead of about being herself.
"Did you want something else?" Her fathers voice startled Molly from her thoughts.
"Uhh...no. I'll see you tomorrow. Goodnight Daddy."
"Goodnight."
Molly slowly climbed the back stairs after stopping in the kitchen for a glass of milk. On the way to her room she made stops at Jamie's room to tuck his blanket tighter around him and Sean's room to turn off the light and move his comic off his face. Then she stopped in her parents room to make sure her mother was passed out. Pausing in the middle of the upstairs hallway before continuing onto her own bedroom another thought passed through her mind,
'When did I become the parent?


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A/N: So much for that cliffhanger. I was laying in bed and this chapter just wouldn't go away so I wrote it. However, this means probably no update til Sunday (although with the way I've been writing..who knows) as I have like no time until then 'cause I have a wake, funeral, work, and a birthday dinner to go to between now and then.

Title is from "Plowed" by Sponge.