Autumn

2: Home Had A Heart

        After the rumbling sound of Collin's Volvo faded away, I walked up the rest of the dreadful path to the grim residence that belongs to the Snows' rests on top of the hill above. At first, it was (in Dad's opinion a small cottage away from his penthouse in New York) bright and beautiful with flowers growing around it. Now, it looks like Aria's house from Pretty Little Liars but more haunted. Chipped paint, dead plants, and the wires and pipes are popping out of the ground, like tree roots. They remind me of pipes that are about to come out of the ground when the balloons lift up the house from the Pixar movie Up. Sure it looks run down and pitiful on the outside, but the inside is something else. It's a hoarder's paradise.

        Books, YA to children's fiction to even books relating to the Bible, are stacked until it reaches to the celing. Several cups piled on the island in the kitchen and any table that's found in the house. Good pieces of furniture piled on each other because Mom has no other reasonable place to put them. Or sell them at least. We have three TVs: One in my Mom and stepdad's room, one in the living room, and one my stepbrother won by calling a number on the radio. It's a cheap piece of crap. Not only is it broken (thanks to him) but it doesn't work. Congraulations Stephen.

        I sigh, finally reaching the top of the blasted hill. I throw my book bag to the glass screen covered door, which is painted one of the most ugliest colors of all the rainbows that will be seen, and jog up the stone stairs. Opening the door, I grab my book bag with one hand, pulling it over my back and go inside. The arouma smells of burnt orange slices and lavender. I exhale. This may sound weird but, my mom is taking a bath. The only room in the entire house that is clean and bleached (to death) is the elegant bathroom Mom practically lives in. She loves her private bath; it's always clean and it's the only room that she can actually escape her troubles, AKA her family.

        Walking through the scent of soup and perfume, I look passed the cracked door. There in the bathtub is Mom. She has cucumbers over her eyelids and green mud on her face. I sigh. 'She looks so peaceful', I think. 'Not for long.'

        "Hey Mom!" I shout, I notice her head jerk up from the calmness of her private spa. "I'm home from school!"

        Not even taking any chances for waiting on her, I run quickly towards my room, slamming the door shut behind me. Smiling to myself out of contempt, I throw my stuff on my clean smelling floor, crash landing on my bed. My room. My safe haven away from family members. I don't have a bedpost, considering the fact my mom is too "cheap" to buy me one, so my bed is just two mattresses. My dresser is from an old antique shop my stepdad's ex girlfriend runs. He managed only bringing up 20% more than the original. Way to go. It may be old and expensive (?) but it's ancientness is beautiful. I, like some my friends, have a bookshelf but I bought too many books so it's about to collapse. The bookshelf in my room at Dad's penthouse is huge. Books he bought himself or the ones I got for free or for less money are messily placed at random on the shelves unless by series. I'd still upset that I left the Grisha Trilogy that I planned to read on my trip here at home. Well, there's always winter vacation.

        I heard a loud noise heard almost loud enough to hear from the neighbor's house and back coming from the living room. In other words, Stephen's permanent living space. That bastard. Stephen graduated from high-school almost three to five years ago. He could have gone to college if he had three simple things: a) Good grades; he hates school but oddly enough, he's good at it but he won't do the damn work. b) Talents or a major or a plan; Stephen once told me he had more talent than the girl who played oboe in the school band. Five years later or so, she's got a scholarship and I thought I saw her playing in the orchestra that came to play for our school. Yeah, Stephen has no plans. And c) Money; if Stephen has money, he would have been out of the house. I hate the fact that he turns down every job I or some employer tries to give him. He says e either has no talent or he doesn't want to work for that kind of company. I finally just gave up on him.

        I rush past the hallway, Stephen's low grunting was pain to my ears.

         "Dammit!" he yelled repetitively. He led his foot as he rocked slowly on the coach. I look at him with a mixed expression (confused and slightly embarrassed to live under the same roof with him).

        "Stephen, what the hell." I say, walking over to where he usually sits. On the coach where he spends 24/7, is covered with orange stains because of the Cheetos he feeds off of instead of real food. The remote control is somewhere in the mess of clothes and a wrinkled blanket that says "Stephanie" instead of Stephen. I bet his ex-girlfriend gave that to him. Looking over my step-brother, I see his foot is bleeding; there is a nasty gash on his left foot and his hands are catching a ton of blood than on his foot. I see the cause of the wound right in front of me: Mom's priceless glass hippopotamus. She won it at a bingo game at the Lakes' house next door. Everyone goes to Mrs. Lake's bingo games because of the prizes she gives out. Mom says she wishes she married well as Mrs. Lake did, not only offending both of her husbands. That glass hippo wasn't the only glass object that Mrs. Lake had as a prize for bingo. She has many more. Mom will have a freakin' heart attack when she sees what Stephen has done. I look back and forth between Stephen and the broken hippo. Sighing, I walk towards the other direction to the many cabinets not sure which one to pick out of. "Stephen try not to hurt yourself anymore than you've already have done, or hang on just don't move. I'm looking for the stupid first aid." 

        Stephen groans, but stays put. I think. Finally finding the first aid kit in the cabinet that I decided not to look in in the first place, I rush over to my idiot older step-brother. Before doing anything risky, I push some large pieces of glass away from Stephen's foot area and then sit on the coach next to him. I looked cautiously at him at first before pulling out anything from the kit.

        "Did you get any glass in your foot?" 

        My brother looks weirdly at his foot gash and shakes his head. Good. I don't need to pick glass. I take out wipes from the kit, carefully rubbing them along the gash, Stephen's groans getting even more louder the more I try to clean. When I finished wiping down his cut, I give him another wet wipe to clean his hands as I seal his wound with a band aid most likely used for a head injury instead for someone's abnormally large foot. I stand up from my seat, satisfied at my work, dusting off my pants. Closing the first aid kit, I walk over calmly to where the broom and dustpan lie and start to clean up Steohen's mess. 

        He sighed before I heard a, "Thank you," escape his breath. 

        Before I could reply, I caught Mom gasp. She was out of her relaxing bath, her hair wrapped in a bun but she was completely dressed. My mother was one of those people who didn't like to be unprepared so she brought her clothes in the bathroom with her while she took a bath. I haven't seen my mom's face this surprised in all of her life except the time when I came back from one of my two month vacation away from Dad's penthouse and my bangs were cut choppy. Of course I don't have bangs anymore because she can't trust me with sharp objects (Like she expects Stephen to know how to use a knife). Then, she flushed as red as a bright red tomato. Storming forward so fast that I couldn't even see her, it took me exactly two minutes to find that my hand was over my cheek, my heart racing. She had slapped me so hard it caught me off guard. 

        "Leave! NOW!" she shouted so loud that I shook with fear. When my mom yells, you don't need time to think about what the next actions you could do. You just do as she told you. 

        I ran to my room, tears already traveling down my face. As I shut my door and lock it tight, I slid my back against the door frame, shivering. I'm not surprised, unfortunetly. This isn't the first time. Let me finish the story when I cut my bangs; she took me home, hit me the spot where my bangs were hanging, and locked me in my room. I was scared as a nine year old, but not for long. The only thing that surprises me, is that Stephen didn't stand up for me. I just healed him. No. Forget it. There's no hope for me here. Not when they're here. I promise I'll never come back when Dad sends for me. No turning back.