A Cold Day in December

A Cold Day in December Chapter Three

A Cold Day in December

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CHAPTER THREE

METAPHORS AT WORK

Hot firecracker. Those are probably the exact words that could perfectly grasp how awfully bad I feel at the moment. Should I or should I not thank my parents for arranging firsthand my schooling at a public school? I have no idea. Why public school in the first place? Not that I have doubts about the quality of education being offered, but I've heard rumors as to how a public school works. Bullying, murderous gossips and all indirect forms of killing such as backstabbing happen there right? Surely my previous school had those too, but the students were programmed to limit the use of that stuff to protect and prevent smearing our almost spotless reputation. At least my fellow students and I had a common understanding of the Cardinal rule 'do not do unto others what you don't want others to do unto you,' which was great by the way.

I could almost see the look of disgust on my friends' faces when I broke the news on Facebook. A few of them sacrificially liked the post while most of them took their precious time sending sorry messages, desperately trying to ease the pain that's supposed to be killing me. They never really failed to amuse me with their egocentric way of thinking.

I glanced at the time on the bottom of my laptop, still early but I better get ready. I shut the laptop and stretched on my bed, wallowing at the softness of it. I showered and dressed before rummaging inside my bedside drawer looking for the bottle of Valium I hid inside. When I found it, I fished it out and shook a pill out and swallowed without water. That should do the trick. I headed downstairs in to the kitchen for a quick breakfast, not expecting my mom to be up yet. She never was a morning person, surprisingly; she was seated comfortably on a stool sipping coffee, the lifestyle section of the morning paper sprawled on the nook.

"Wow, I'm impressed." I wheedled. "What woke you up so early?" I mocked. I poured milk in my cereal bowl and sat at the table. I made a mental note of telling her to get a housekeeper or a cook. My stomach could only digest take-outs for so long without malfunctioning.

"I'm going to drive you to school," my mom snapped me out of my thinking with a smile. I coughed a few times trying to nudge the cereal that stuck in my throat.

"Mom" I whined after successfully drowning the culprit with milk. “Tell me the truth. What have you been smoking?" From this day onwards, I'm gonna dread waking up in the morning.

"Come on honey, let me do this mother thing right this time. Just give me a chance," she pleaded, batting her eyelashes.

"It's too late mom. I'm not a first grader anymore. Besides, you've got a million chances before, but you blew every single one of them." Good thing my voice didn't crack. Not even a tear threatened to escape my firmly focused eyes as I stared at her. She let out a depressing sigh that almost broke my heart. I won.

I took a casual glance at my watch before standing up. I put the bowl and slung my bag on my body. I was about to walk out when my mom spoke up.

"Before you go, take this." She slid a shiny black thing on the table. I didn't need a second glance to know what it was. It wasn't the first time that she offered me the credit card.