"I didn't do anything wrong," I argued, walking into the kitchen and grabbing a small tub of ice cream out of the freezer. I picked up a spoon and popped the lid.

   "Was there alcohol at the party?" my mother asked, raising her eyebrows.

   "Well, yeah but-" I shoveled ice cream out of the tub and into my mouth, "I only tried it. It's called experimenting, Mom."

   I rolled my eyes. She sighed, exasperated.

   "You are your father's daughter." This was meant as an insult. My parents were divorced. I rolled my eyes once more. "I called him and he's coming over, by the way."

   She turned away from me as she walked to the sink and got a glass of water. I leaned against the kitchen island and shoved more ice cream into my mouth. Then, I heard a knock on the door. Oh no, it's my dad, I thought to myself. The door opened and a tall, buff man walked in. I knew it. My dad, Joe. He was a sort of scary guy. He looked kind of like a security guard except he always wore a suit. This was very odd because my father owned a post office.

   "Where's my girl?" he asked in an oddly deeper voice than I remember him having two months ago when I last saw him. I smiled sheepishly.

   "Hey, Dad." He came over and gave me a large bear hug. I patted his cheek, hesitantly.

   "You never call anymore. I miss you." He waited for my excuse.

   "I um-" I was cut off before I could even think of a good excuse.

   "Joseph, your daughter went to a party that got raided by the police." Mother crossed her arms.

   'Your daughter?' She referred to me as his daughter.

   Dad surprised me when Mom looked away. He looked down at me, his short daughter, and chuckled with pride. Then Mother gave him an evil look and his stern face returned.

   "Uh... that's not good. You should be punished," he snickered under his breath. I smiled, oh so confused.

    "That's exactly what I had in mind. I think she should work at your post office, Joseph. It might keep her out of trouble."

   "What?!" Joe and I both exclaimed in unison.

   "But what if any of my friends see me there?" I worried.

   "Oh, Sweetheart, your friends aren't going to see you there," he laughed. It must have been some kind of inside joke, I guess.

   "Fine. I'll work there, but I won't be happy about it," I pouted furiously.

   "Fine," Mom shrugged.

   "Fine!" I yelled and stomped up to my room dramatically.

   Mom and I were always fighting but she was pretty cool when she wasn't acting like a complete control freak. She was always trying to fix me when there was nothing to fix. And Dad? I never really knew him that well, but he had a weird attachment to me. He was also very protective. Though, so was my mother when she first met India (my best friend). She begged me to stay away from India, but my father, surprisingly, loved the girl. He shook her hand, happily, and nodded approvingly at me.

   "Good choice in friends, Charie," he laughed. Poor mom always wanted the best for me, though.

   "Charlotte, why does India always have that insane hair cut?"

   Another thing my parents always disagreed on was my name. My father and every other normal person on the planet called me Charlie, or Carly even. Only my mother (and my grandmother if she were still alive) called me Charlotte. Ugh! I absolutely hated it.

   Anyway, I was so angry with my mother for fronting India, that I began irritating her… Purposely.

   "Ya know, just for saying that, I'm cutting my hair." I thought for a second about if that's what I really wanted to do and nodded, "Yeah! That's what I'll do!"

   Then I stormed off to my room. I knew my mom expected me to sneak out the front door when she wasn't looking, so I proceeded to climb out the window. (Good thing my room was on the first floor or this would have never worked.)

   After I walked halfway down the block and ran the rest of the way to India's house, I knocked on the door hesitantly. You know how when you were little and you just had a bad dream, you would creep to your parents room and stand in front of the door, thinking about whether you should wake them up or not? Then you would raise your fist to knock, but then lowered it. Then raised it and lowered it until you finally got up the guts to knock? Maybe not...but I did. That's exactly what I did.

   Then I knocked. Someone opened the door and stared at me blankly. India's mother. India's mom was usually spaced out when she wasn't dealing with bratty little kids.

   India's mother got bored, sighed and rolled her eyes.

   "What?!" Margot (India's mom) practically yelled at me.

   "Um...is India home?" I asked shyly, rubbing my arm.

   "India!" she yelled.

   "Stop yelling. I'm here. God. What do you want?" she asked her mother. Margot grunted and her eyes darted edgily toward me. Then she walked away. This made me appreciate my family.

   "Oh, hey. What's up?" India asked.

   I took a deep breath and blurted out, "I want you to cut my hair."

   I covered my mouth with my hands. A wide grin spread across India's face.

   "What style do you want?" she asked, happily.

   "You pick," I demanded. She smiled once more and pulled me into her house without hesitation.

   That's when she cut my hair and it's been that way for weeks. Well, it served its purpose and mom freaked out.

   Anyway, back to the present times. So, I was in my room getting really mad at my mom and I didn't know what to think about Dad. I mean, he looked just as surprised and caught off guard as I was.

   "What's he got to hide?" I hugged my pillow and rested my chin on it, "I guess I'll find out Monday," I thought out loud. I was only working there on weekdays after school and weekends. I could even take my homework to work on since this was probably going to be the most pathetically boring job ever. Boy, could I have been more wrong.