The Eden Series: The Complete Collection Read Online Free

moment he sat down.
    “I received a call from your school while you were getting your beauty sleep,” his mother said through pursed lips. “Want to tell me again, about how your teacher let you out early?”
    His father sat silently with his face in the newspaper. Great , Aiden thought. Here comes a lecture.
    “I just didn’t feel like going, okay?” he replied, pushing his hair back. This was a habit of his, which resulted in his hair looking like a complete mess all the time.
    “Okay? Sure, why wouldn’t that be okay?” his mother replied sarcastically. Her tone wasn’t lost on him. “Of course that’s not okay, Aiden!” she continued. “Why would you skip school?”
    “What is the big deal? It was a supply teacher, so we wouldn’t be doing anything important.”
    “You still need to go. Michael, back me up!”
    “Your mother is right,” his father added absently.
    “Thanks …”
    “What? What do you want me to say?” his father asked, lowering the newspaper. “Like we didn’t skip classes once in a while.” If looks could kill, his father would have been dead at that moment. His mother’s eyes burned.
    “That is not the point. We don’t want him to be missing classes.”
    Sighing, his father turned and finally looked at him. “Aiden, don’t skip again. Got it?”
    “Yes, sir,” he replied. They all knew he would, but as parents they had to say something like that. The rest of dinner went by without incident, but the same could not be said for the rest of the night. At around nine, he heard a slight tap on his bedroom door. It creaked open, and his mother’s head peeped around the corner.
    “Can I come in?” she asked quietly.
    “Sure,” he answered, shrugging. She slowly walked in, taking notice of the piles of laundry that littered the floor. He knew it took a lot of restraint for her not to say anything about it. “What’s up?”
    She sat down on the edge of his bed, smiling down at him like she used to do when he was a small kid. “I just wanted to talk.”
    “What about?”
    “Well, I wanted to see how things are going at school this year.”
    “Mom, it’s the middle of the year already—why would you be interested now?”
    She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. He could tell she was trying to act casual about the situation. “Because you never skipped classes in your old school, so it makes me wonder why you would do it now.”
    “My old school wasn’t high school,” he pointed out. “People don’t skip elementary school.”
    “That’s true, I suppose.” She nodded her head. “So everything is okay, then? No one’s giving you a hard time?”
    His face felt like it was heating up, so he quickly looked back down at the book he had been reading. Hopefully, she wouldn’t take notice, but it was unlikely. Mothers seem to have a sixth sense about these things when it comes to their children. There had never been a time in his life when his mother hadn’t known something was wrong with him. The case with his school wasn’t something he really wanted to talk about though. It was embarrassing for him to tell his own mother what a loser he was.
    “Everything is fine, Mom. No worries.” She sat looking at him for a minute, before taking the hint and getting up to leave.
    “All right, well, I’ll leave you to do your work then,” she said, leaning down to kiss him on the head. “Goodnight.”
    “’Night,” he replied as she shut the door behind her. Feeling a strong need for some fresh air, Aiden walked over to the small window that was the only source of natural light in his room and opened it up to feel the night breeze. Some days were just worse than others, he told himself. Things would get better—they had to.
    It didn’t start to get better the next day. On his way to school, his father’s piece of crap car died, making him late again for first period. This time he had the sense enough to skip it altogether and avoid the wrath of his teacher.