Perspectives

3. Hero

The day I had experienced inspired tears as many have been seeming to do lately.  My best friend hasn't talked to me the way she used to for approximately a month now but it appears to be forever.  Her unspoken abhor for my actions was so apparent I couldn't understand how she thought I didn't sense it.  I know of how it bothers her when I hate myself, but I simply do.  I haven't been finding hope for that changing anytime near in the future.

Math didn't make me feel better in this situation but I could not miss it.  I completed it along with my extra studies for college in enough time to go running.  The need to run was a natural therapy that ran inside my veins like the need to breathe.  I felt at home each time my foot came to contact with the floor.  There was a certain change, though about the reckless abandon that I ran with today.  There was a change in the way I felt as I ran.  For the past seven years, at least, I'd run like I was running from something.  Fear, if anything, propelling me to go forward.  But today, I ran as though I was running toward something.  I finally felt as though there was something that was pulling me to go further aside from the spirit of my father.  Something was pulling me in and I needed to find it.  

After I had covered a large distance, I stopped.  The feeling that was pulling me stopped almost suddenly.  It appeared that what I was supposed to have been running for should be here.  But there was nothing here.  It was just a side of a street in a neighborhood.  There was an appartment complex to my left and many houses to my right.  What was it that I was supposed to find here? The need to find out was an imploring pain in my mind.  

I ran home angrily.  When I posessed this anger, I ran with a speed that I seemed to forget I had until I ran this way.  i ran up the stairs.  Our house was nice.  It was amazing.  When my father died, we didn't know how much money he had in his will.  It was unnessecary.  Our house was unnesseary.  They were possessions and they were superficial.  Despite the fact that they had brought me "friends" in the past, I have never felt like I needed it.  I walked up our shiny staircase and lay down on my bed.  I stared up at the white ceiling and watched it do absoluetly nothing.

I have had problems.  The day that my father died, I cried into my mother's arms for hours.  This was the closest moment I have ever had with my mother.  This was also the last time I had cried withanything other than pain.  Since then, unless I had been hurt, I hadn't shed a single tear.  Some people said it was because I had cried every tear I had that day.  I knew better than that in that it was impossible to runout of tears.  But there were some days that I wondered if there was any possibility that that was true.  

I have never cut myself.  Each time I had ever come close, I felt a feeling I couldn't explain.  A feeling of knowing that my father would be disappointed in me.  This simply inspired me to do better.  I generally followed these moments by going to study or practice for my sports teams.  I have never felt good enough despite how hard I worked.  Sometimes I had thought about how easy it would be to just escape it all.  Nobody knows anything about these problems.  I heard the distinct sound of a door opening and got up out of bed.  My mother didn't like it when I got in bed before dinner.  I walked down the stairs to see her coming in the door.  She had pale white skin, contrary to my father's black skin, and long black hair.  I guess that's why my hair is so straight for a black person.

"Hero," she croaked, "What the hell are you doing home?"  She had lost her sweet cheery voice once she had started smoking and now it was more of a crackly croak. 

"I live here," I said, matter-of-factly.  She stared at me with anger in her eyes.

With a dirty stare, she said, "Don't be smart with me, Hero."  she walked past me into the kitchen. 

"What do you wanna eat, Hero?" she asked. 

"I'm not hungry."

"You have to eat, Hero," she said, opening a cupboard.