I heard a knock on my door. “Candace?” my mom’s voice called. I sighed.

“Yeah?” I called out. She opened the door and stepped inside.

“What are you doing?” she asked, staring straight at me. I bit my lip and looked down at the teen breakup novel I had been absorbed in for the past two hours. I could tell by the pages that I was almost halfway through the thick book, and I hadn’t even thought about homework, which unfortunately had been piling up since last week.

“Reading.” I mumbled, grabbing the library receipt and bookmarking the page before shutting the book and stashing it into my pile of other library books. I sat up on my bed and looked at my mom expectantly. She must have had something important to say, or else she would’ve just yelled it through the door and left. She shut the door behind her and sidestepped around a full laundry basket or clean clothes.

“Didn’t I tell you to fold your clothes immediately? They’ll wrinkle!” she grunted, trying not to trip. I turned my head away and rolled my eyes. She took a seat on top of the white wooden chest at the foot of my bed. “Candace, what you said this morning concerned me. A lot. I never knew that you were this way. It really is very upsetting. This isn’t how we raised you.” She started out. I chewed on my lip. Straight to the point, isn’t she?

Earlier today, before I had left for school, she called me into her room while she was dressing for work. I had a swim meet after school that day, and I was most likely going to be paired up with Anthony’s school if we were up against a co-ed team. Of course, I expressed my discomfort, especially after finding out that Christina had broken up with him, and he wasn’t showing the least signs of heartbreak. I didn’t see any, at least.

“Candace, are you going to be okay? You know, with Anthony and all…” my mom had said, concerned. Everything was a blur after that. I must have spilled my guts about how vengeful I had been to him, and then how upset I was with him at being okay after his girlfriend of seven months left him. Then, I think I told her about the song I wrote about it, “Game Over”. That must have been what I had said, because what happened next was something that I couldn’t forget. She stopped what she was doing and stared at me. Just stared. It wasn’t really the stare that pinned me. It was the way she stared. She looked pained, shocked, enraged… and flat-out disappointed.

“Candace.” She had said to break the silence. “I didn’t know you were like that. So vindictive… and especially during Lent. How can you live with yourself, knowing that you’ve deliberately broadcasted that boy’s flaws in the most biased way possible? That is just… so… wrong.” So wrong. Those words rang in my head. How could it be wrong? I felt nothing but right. If she had known how he made me feel, and the things he did to me, then she wouldn’t be so quick to talk. I was able to dismiss her short lecture at school, but now that she was bringing it up again, those words, and that look she gave me, came flooding back.

“Candace,” she continued, looking me in the eye. “I don’t mind you writing, and I encourage your art, but this isn’t art. This is tabloid. Trash. Nothing more.”

“Mom, I want to write a novel that will sell.” I countered, leaning forward. “I want to write something that people will be able to relate to! What better way to write a believable story than take it for actual events?”

“It’s okay to write it!” Mom said impatiently. Then, she took a deep breath and began talking softer. “It’s just not right to broadcast it. When it’s out in the open, people won’t think of it as fiction! They’ll know that you’re talking about Anthony, and he’ll know it! You can’t just blow off steam and post it online! People will read that! And people who know Anthony will know that you’re referring to him!”

“Let them!” I said, raising my voice. “They’re seeing who he really is!”

“They’re seeing who you think he is.” Mom sighed. I commended her on keeping her composure though this. “You’re putting ideas about him in peoples’ heads so that they’re prejudiced before they get to know him. No one deserves that kind of treatment, especially from someone like you. You’re supposed to be his friend.”

“I changed his name in the stories! Isn’t that enough?” I asked. “I mean, I know I’m not really friends with him, and I don’t think we’ll ever be as close as we were before we started dating a year ago, but I do feel some friendliness towards him, so I’m hiding his identity. Plus, I’m also gonna write his side of the story, making him not seem so bad. Just confused. People don’t as easily hate someone who’s just confused about love.”

“I think I’ll have to approach this from another side.” Mom said. “The way you’re writing isn’t Oxford worthy. You can just forget about Oxford and go to a community college if that’s all you want to write about. Tabloid, trash, mudslinging, smut… just forget about a good college if that’s the path you’re going to pursue.” I straightened up at that statement. Excuse me? It was a good thing that she was my mother, because…

“Mom!”

“I’m serious, Candace! Do you want to be a writer? Then be creative! Really creative! And creativity doesn’t mean whining about your social life to the whole world! I mean, what if the tables were turned, and someone was broadcasting dirt about you?”

“I have no secrets.” I said confidently. My mom scoffed. “No, really. I’m open about everything.” I pressed on. “I think the best thing to do if you want people to trust you is to put all your cards down on the table. It also has another advantage. See, no one can get dirt on me when I’m already so open about myself.”

“Oh, so I can just put up on my blog ‘Candace forgot her underwear yesterday at a friend’s house… AGAIN!’ How does that look? Especially to people who don’t know you well enough?” Mom asked, crossing her arms. I raised an eyebrow.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with my love life… oh.” I trailed off. I could definitely see how people could misinterpret that. And considering the stereotype of high school girls…

“That’s terrible.” I said, not even bothering to suppress the disgust in my voice.

“See? It’s innocent enough until people spin it around in their heads.” Mom said, raising her palm up to accentuate her point. I slumped down on my bed. “Candace, I will not tolerate you putting this out in the open.” She said in a calmer voice. “I want you to pull those stories off the internet, and I want you to give Anthony a formal apology. You had no right to do that to him, and he doesn’t deserve that. I’ve already made that clear to you. Besides, do authors broadcast what their books are going to be about before they publish them?” I shook my head. “No, see? If people already knew what was in it, then there would be no point in buying.” She said matter-of-factly. I remained silent, looking straight at her. I didn’t know what I was feeling. Failure? No, that couldn’t be it. It was a challenge. A challenge to come up with a new way to write the book. A way that seemed less… less something, I knew that much.

“Your writing right now is immature.” Mom said, shifting on the chest. I nodded. Immature. That’s what it was. “That book written by that teenage boy… you’ve read it, right?” She looked at me expectantly. I shook my head. “Well, you’ll find the time to read it soon enough. Anyways, he has a good writing style, but I’m not really enjoying it. It’s just too… charged with immature and teenage feelings. It doesn’t cater to the tastes of adults. You don’t want your writing to be targeted to a single age group, do you? You want your works to appeal to a wider audience.” She then fell silent for a few moments, staring at me expectantly. I couldn’t think of the right response. I knew she was right, and I was glad that she wasn’t making me delete my stories. If I understood correctly, I could hide them in my hard drive or journal until things settled down with Anthony, and then publish them officially as pure fiction.

“Pull them off the internet.” Mom said a final time. “Apologize to Anthony.” She stood up and sidestepped the laundry basket on her way to the door.

“And fold your clothes.”

END