Don't Go

4

"Mom! I'm home." I said with a tired yawn.

My mother ran up to me with a big smile as I shut the door to our house.

"Hi George! How was your day at school? I saw that you got detention, what was that all about?" She questioned with a small smile.

I rolled my eyes, "Mrs. Jones gave me detention for drawing in class." I grumbled angrily.

Mom chuckled and brought me into a hug, "We both know that Mrs. Jones is a bit of a Karen. If anything serious happens, please tell me. I don't want her to punish you for an invalid reason." My mom said.

I nodded and hugged her back before pulling away.

"GEORGEEEE!" My dad said, smiling and walking up to me and bringing me into a giant hug.

Honestly, he always gave the best hugs. I hugged back, hoping that I wouldn't get crushed.

"How was school?" He asked with a grin.

I shrugged, "pretty normal, not much ever happens at school."

Dad nodded and stepped back, "What type of homework do you have?" He asked.

"Ehh, just math homework." I responded, walking over to the room where I usually do my homework.

"Oh okay, tell me if you need help with any of it." Dad said, walking over to the dinner table where the newspaper that he was probably just reading was.

I set my bag down on the roller chair that I have and pulled out my school chrome book and a few other papers.

I opened my chrome book and logged onto my math homework just so I could take a quick look at it.

I pulled it up, stared at the screen and walked away. I had no motivation to do my homework. I grabbed my phone from my backpack and jogged upstairs to my room.

I plopped into my bed and plugged my headphones in. I opened Tiktok and began scrolling and scrolling. And I'll be honest here... it really didn't amuse me too much. I got annoyed and groaned, I was so bored.

I laid in bed and stared up at the ceiling, bored out of my mind. I had absolutely no motivation to do anything.

What do I do when I have no motivation? I play music. I grabbed my headphones and connected them to my phone. I opened Spotify shortly after and played my favorites list.

"Love Like You" started to play. I closed my eyes with a content smile and allowed myself to relax and sink into the bed.

Just as I was getting comfortable, my little sister bust into my room without knocking. I jumped, she startled me. I glared at the 9 year old, "What do you want, Anna? And knock before coming in." I scolded with a deep frown and furrowed eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes as a scowl formed on her face, "You don't knock on my door, why should I knock on yours."

That made me even angrier, "I knock on your door, what are you talking about?"

Anna scoffed, "You never knock on my door." She yelled. Soon enough we were in a full blown fight. She ended it by shouting, "MOM WANTS TO TALK TO YOU, AND YOU ARE A MISTAKE." And she slammed my door.

I felt my heart drop, I have always had problems with self motivation, her words never helped. Sometimes we got along, and when we did, it was some of the best times ever.

My mood had been ruined but I went downstairs anyway to see what my mom wanted anyway. "Yeah?" I mumbled.

"Hey George, would you like to get started on your homework?" She asked, eyes on her computer and tapping away.

I shrugged, "Can I do it after dinner?" I asked.

My mom looked away from her computer, "No, start it now, Dad is waiting to help you."

I internally groaned, doing homework with my dad always resulted in us fighting. I walked over to my homework room and saw my dad sitting on a stool, looking at extra math practice on his computer.

"Hey, come sit down and we can work on your homework together and do extra math practice." He said, like my mom, not looking away from the computer screen.

I rolled my eyes and shrugged my backpack off of my back. Every time Dad and I did homework together, it almost always ended up with us yelling at each other.

"Alright, so I checked through all of your Google Classrooms and you have a couple things to do." My Dad began.

"I think we should start with English first because.... blah blah blah...." His voice started to fade away and I was zoning out.

"GEORGE. ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?" My Dad yelled, snapping me away from my distant state.

"Huh?" I stumbled on my words, I had no idea what we were doing.

"George, can you try to stay zoned in, I'm spending this time with you and here you are, in Dreamland." Dad scolded.

I have ADHD and was diagnosed in 4th grade. I'm really interested in the topic of neurodivergency, so I did a lot of research about ADHD and other disorders. I've written 3 essays and 1 google slide about it. I'm guessing that I have severe ADHD due to the fact that I can relate to every single symptom.

My inability to stay focused for more than 5 minutes has always been a major issue. Sure, I take meds, but they only last for about 3 hours.

"George, focus." My Dad instructed.

I sighed and tried to refocus, but failing miserably.

"CAN'T YOU JUST FOCUS FOR ONE GODDAMN SECOND? IM SPENDING ALL OF THIS TIME FOR YOU TO JUST GO IN LALA LAND." Dad yelled, eruptively standing up from his chair.

He grabbed my math binder, held it in the air and slammed it back down on the table, making a very loud sound and causing me to flinch.

Whenever he did this, it terrified me. He was really unpredictable whenever he got mad. He has hit me a few times, but I knew that he loved me. He says he does, always reminding me.

He continued yelling at me, throwing things around the room, ripping up papers before he finally stormed out and decided to take his anger out by yelling at my mother. I heard them scream back and fourth, Mom was trying to defend me while Dad screamed about his stupid I was.

Tears sprang to my eyes and I ran upstairs to my room and shut the door as soundlessly as I could. I didn't want to attract attention.

I jumped onto the bed, shoved my head into a pillow, and cried. I wailed, I hate this, I hate him, I hate me, I hate everything.

I just want this to end.

(1145 words)

If some of this doesn't make sense, let me know cause I'm writing this at my little sister's birthday party, it's so loud and my ears hurt send help