I got in just after midnight, trying my hardest not to make too much noise and wake my folks. My mom had been on the war path lately. She said she was under ‘excess stress’ at work and she appreciated my co-operation but no matter what I did, even when I did everything she asked of me, I would get yelled at and told off, so I was spending as little time as possible at home.
This wasn’t the first time I had broken my curfew. I had been caught a few weeks earlier and as punishment my parents had taken my spare house key off me, so if I snuck out then I would spend the whole night outside in the cold. This was all designed to teach me a lesson but instead I managed to find ways around it. There was the typical and cliché way of scaling the trellis up the side of the house and getting in through my bedroom window, but I found that that made too much noise and my step-dad Jack caught me one night when I was half way up.
The garage had a little side door on it that led through to the backyard, so what I had done before I left, was make sure that it wasn’t locked and left slightly ajar. Apart from parking the cars, the garage was hardly ever used and I know Jack and my mom would never have thought to check the side door before going to bed. I wasn’t a kid anymore so I didn’t play out in the yard.
I went around the side of the house, jumped the fence into the backyard and carefully tried the side door, opening it slowly so it didn’t creak and wake everybody up. Success! I was in. I navigated my way around the car, went up the two stairs that led to the main part of the house and walked up the short hallway to the kitchen and dining room area. I was just about to go up the stairs when the light was flicked on and I saw Jack standing in the kitchen, very, very angry. His arms were folded across his chest and his face was pink with anger.
“Well young lady, what do you have to say for yourself?” he asked.
“I was at the game,” I answered.
“Oh really? And the school football game goes until after midnight? I know you were at the after-party. Your mother and I told you not to go and you ignored us. The cops always shut the parties down and kids drink far too much and get rushed to hospital.”
“What’s the big deal?” I asked, raising my arms. “I had one beer, I left before things got messy. And I’m home, aren’t I?” I asked.
“Keep your voice down Christa,” he snarled. Jack was quiet for a moment, thinking things through. “How’d you get in the house? We took your key away.”
“Oh yeah right, like I’m going to tell you that,” I laughed. Jack narrowed his eyes at me in anger. I quickly made my exit before things got really ugly and rushed up the stairs to my room, shutting the door behind me.
I started to get undressed, taking great care to hang my cheerleader’s uniform up. I was very proud of it. When I was standing there in my underwear the door was slowly opened and Jack was in the door way.
“What are you doing?” I asked, covering myself. We may have had sex but he’d never seen me like this.
“You know what I want,” he shrugged. He came further into my room.