lonely heart || cth [slowly written]

°°°

Three years earlier

I was sitting in my room as I did my homework every Wednesday after school, listening to my favorite artists.  Once again today I was lost in my thoughts, looking out the window I saw the same view, unchanged for many years.  Trees.  Full of trees.  Every now and then a lone bird flew over them, sometimes a small group, other times an entire flock.  I rested my elbows on the desk and rested my face on my small hands, not taking my eyes off the view outside the window.

I was brought out of this state by a loud sound of breaking glass coming from the lower floor of the house. I closed my eyes, keeping my head down, trying to ward off the negative thoughts that I had already started to circulate in my head but it didn't help. I knew exactly what it meant, although I really preferred to be wrong.

I turned off the soft music that was still coming from the laptop speakers and then left the room, heading towards the kitchen.

***

As I expected - in the kitchen I met a blonde woman of medium height with tousled hair and slightly smudged makeup, who smiled crookedly at me after meeting my gaze.  This woman was my mother and she was drunk.  Again. 

I started looking around the dark kitchen floor for a broken object.

"Sorry, honey, I didn't wake you up, right?" my mother asked, coming up to me uncertainly.

"It's only 7 pm, I haven't slept" I grabbed the brush and dustpan and walked over to broken glass.

"I know I'm sorry .. I just had a hard day at work"

'Hard day at work' she had it almost every day.

"You'd better go and lie down" I said as I walked past her, then dumped the contents of the dustpan into the trash can.

My mother came up to me, pressed me tightly against her and kissed me on the cheek.  She smelled the sharp smell of alcohol mixed with a hint of cigarette smoke. God I hated the combination of these two smells.  I quickly moved away from my mother, slightly pushing her hands away from me, she looked at me for a moment with her tired red eyes, but then she looked down, slowly leaving the room.

I leaned back against the kitchen counter, looking around. I had no thought in my head except for this one how much I hated my mother.