The Big Fish by Madison Henley (best free e reader .TXT) 📕

around the bathroom realizing what she almost had done, she mindlessly scrubbed her body and tried hard not to think about anything for a while.

***

Gabrielle sat in the lukewarm bath water and cupped the water with her hands to dump on her head. She shivered as few droplets ran down her spine. The door to her bathroom was locked, as she didn’t want to be interrupted. After her outburst at the dinner table she was sure sooner or later someone was going to come knocking.

“Gabrielle it’s me, open up.”

Gabrielle heard her mother’s faint call from the other side of the door and rolled her eyes. She just wanted be alone.

“Mom, I’m naked and I’m taking a bath. I’ll be out later.”

Gabrielle stated calmly hoping her mother would just drop it.

“No Gabrielle, I want to talk now.”

She could hear the frustration in her mother’s tone and reluctantly stepped out of the bathtub, wrapped herself in a towel and twisted the doorknob.

“What was that?”

Gabrielle rolled her eyes at her mother’s disrespectful invasion of privacy. She used one hand to keep her towel up from falling and the other to rest on the bathroom sink.

“Nothing mom. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry is not what I’m looking for. I want to know why you decide to blow up on your family when we evidently did not do anything to you.”

“I’m just a little stressed mom. You know...we didn't do too well in the Champions League and I was hoping I could take a bath to ease the stress which I'm hoping I can get back to before it gets cold."

"Do you honestly think I believe that? Honey, this is more than just Champions League. You've been acting like this for I don't know how long. It's like you have all this anger inside of you and don't know how to distribute it  properly and it just comes out at the worse times.

Gabrielle couldn't help the tears. she broke down into her mother’s arms and Fiona placed her hands on her cold back, rubbing soothing circles on her skin. She whispered soothing words into her daughter’s ear and slowly backed her into her bedroom, sitting her on the bed. It took at least fifteen minutes for Gabrielle to stop crying and talk but Fiona was patient and she left her daughter talk, her voice trembling the entire time. She explained what happen with Meredith and everything else that lead to it. Fiona was glad that her daughter could finally get out all the pain that she had been bottling up inside of her. It was going destroy her if she didn't and she was just glad it was out in the open. After Gabrielle's crying spell, she drifted off to sleep on her mother's shoulder and Fiona wrapped her in her covers and set out some underwear and a t-shirt when she woke up.

“Hey, I got you some dinner and some pills. Crying gives me an excruciating headache too.”

Gabrielle winced and placed her pillow on her face.

"Ugh! Mom told you?"

"Yes, it's okay though. It's better we all know. Now you have a reason to be a bitch."

“Thanks.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

She kissed the top of her little sister’s forehead before exiting her room and closing the door behind her. Gabrielle smiled slightly, grateful that someone had brought her food. She was starving. She continued watching the Spongebob marathon until sleep took over her and she fell asleep with the television running and the TV remote resting on her stomach.

***

When everyone had fallen asleep, Meredith crept downstairs to the kitchen. She was hungry. She had been hungry for the past two hours but she was waiting for her family to leave the kitchen. Hopefully the motion detector alarm wasn’t on tonight. Meredith cut on the light to the kitchen and grabbed all of the Thanksgiving dinner that her mother so nicely placed in foil out of the refrigerator. She stacked the macaroni, stuffing, turkey, greens and cornbread on her plate. Each portion of food was enough for three football players. Meredith grabbed two bottles of water, a fork out of the drawer and headed back upstairs, balancing everything on her arms, careful not to drop anything. She turned on the lamp sitting on the nightstand beside her bed and placed her plate of food down on it. Meredith grabbed the remote and flicked on the television, turning the volume down on low before plopping down on her bed. She grabbed her plate and placed it on her lap, said her grace and dug in. She had never felt so famished before. She flipped through several channels trying to find something that sparked her interest. She came across a Spongebob Squarepants marathon and was about to settle on that but instead found a documentary of the Titanoboa: The Largest Snake to Ever Live and ended up watching that. Meredith loved snakes. Spongebob could wait.

“I thought I heard someone up. Thought it was a murderer.”

Meredith’s older sister, Payton stuck her head through Meredith’s door with a grin on her face.

“What was up with you? You barely ate anything for dinner…of course, I see you made up for it now."

Payton eyed the completely clean plate sitting on Meredith’s nightstand.

“Pears, I don’t really want to talk right now. Besides there’s a good documentary on and you are ruining it by talking.”

Payton stretched her neck a little further to see the television screen.

“Ew Mer that’s