It's Always Been You

Malcom

My eyes would always travel straight to my pencil every time my parents fought. I'd hear them in the living room, yelling about who knows what. Sometimes it's about bills, or even who didn't do the dishes. 

"Jamie! Why in hell would you think you need to make our son pay the bills. Malcom is goddamn 16!" I hear my mother scream from the living room. Last night my father threw out my MacBook because I didn't pay for it. Along with Lily's tablet and Rosie's iPhone. 

Lily is my ten year old sister. She always hates it when Mom and Dad fight. I can always hear her sniffling softly in the back hall. My other sister, Rosie, is eighteen. She has some sort of eating disorder, my mother told me. She always skips dinner, and when Dad makes her eat,  I can hear her throwing up in the bathroom. Dad's been drinking recently. A whole lot more than he used too. That's what most of the fights have been about. Most of them. 

Sometimes, when I come home from school, Dad will start yelling at Rosie, hitting her with the broom. When I look at her arms and legs, big bruises splotch her skin, but she always tries to conceal them. Mom doesn't know though. 

When I've had enough of my parent's raspy screams, I get up to shut the door. A nail is pressed against the wood. When I touch it, it pricks my skin, blood drizzling on the white carpet. 

I hear mom scream "Fuck you Jamie!"and the door slams, so hard, it shakes our entire house. 

We live in a tiny wooden house hidden inside the forest. Middle. Of. Nowhere. My father always says, "Being outside is being free." Stupid. 

I've never really been a social person. I always kind of stick in the back. I get decent grades, and I do a few sports, but not like many of the other boys. I don't participate in football or soccer games, or try to get the world record for the loudest burp. Or make out with cheerleaders in the back hall. I like to draw. Some of the boys, like Tanner or Steve, who are the football captains for our high school, make fun of me. Tease me. I try not to pay attention though, and just focus on moving my pencil across my paper. 

Dad doesn't like that I like to draw. He wants me to have a football career. Last year, he made me try out, and blackmailed the coach so I could make the team, even though I sucked like shit. 

But I guess I have just learned to live with my father. With Tanner and Steve. With girls staring and pointing, giggling behind their backs, whispering.

 I guess I'm fine with it.

 I guess.