Wish We Never Started

15

I wake up on New Year's Day tired and groggy. Last night feels like a bad dream or something that I made up in my mind.

The winter sun is shining brightly through my window, causing me to squint uncomfortably and shield my eyes.

This is an occurrence most mornings – the position of the sun is angled just perfectly to project right onto my bed.

My hand surveys the bed for my phone, hoping to grasp it soon because I know it's in here somewhere. When I find it, I stick it in the waistband of my boxers so I can sit up and close the window blinds from bed without losing it again.

Once I'm laying down again, minus the annoying sun, I can see that I have text messages from my mom, Diego, and Amelia that I haven't opened.

I turn onto my other side, pulling the blanket over my head like I'm ten again. Maybe if I just pretend I'm not here, it will be another day and then another day and then another day.

Guilt hits me. I should have went home to spend the holidays with my family, not here with people who barely know me. Except Diego, of course.

It's been a long time since I saw my mom in person. Even longer my dad. They probably look older and frailer than when I left to move here, and that thought scares me. Nobody really wants to think about their parents getting older.

My dad split from my mom when I was sixteen. It was an amicable divorce, one they both agreed needed to happen. They parted ways peacefully and still keep in touch, mostly because he gets sentimental about my mom being his first love and the mother of his kid. She has no hard feelings, either.

It's kind of weird when you think about it, but makes more sense in person.

The plane tickets from him were literally handed to me. It was the first time that has ever happened since I moved away.

Maybe if I called him and pleaded my case about how homesick I was, he'd feel a soft spot and book new tickets.

The only problem is, I'm not homesick.

My relationship with my dad is just good. It's not bad, it's not great. Like most things in life, it's a little complicated.

I haven't talked to him in six months because he doesn't want to hear about my "pathetic life in Chicago" anymore. When he said that six months ago, I know he was upset and voicing his feelings, but it still stung and drew a line in the sand.

He probably never thought his only son would turn out like such a failure, and today is just the icing on the cake.

I finally sit up and dial my mom's number, my blankets and sheets scrunched around my stomach.

"Gabriel, what's going on?" Mom answers quickly, sounding concerned. No hello, just straight to the point, because a mother's instinct never goes away.

I switch her to speaker and throw the phone on my bed.

"I want to come home," I confess.

"Gabriel, you didn't want the tickets. Your dad was so upset. He couldn't get a refund, but he was able to switch it to a flight for him to go fly out to Michigan for a fishing trip in the spring."

I rub my hands on my face, sighing.

"I'm too broke to buy my own ticket."

I'm pretty sure she already knows this.

"I keep telling you, for two years now, you need to find a meaningful job," mom says pointedly.

I hate that this is your twenties. The best time of your life wasted away, trying to make money and find a job and then be expected to work so much you don't even have time or energy to do anything else.