Together Alone

1.

The day I decided to kill myself was December 21 of 2013, a Saturday.

 I wanted to wait until Christmas, but then I remember that my Christmas was never very festive. We would probably eat pizza and watch a boring movie on cable. Our ¨Christmas tree¨ was made of old cheap plastic and my mother always bought the wrong gift for me anyway. 

The morning of Saturday December 21 the sky was grey, but it kind of looked like purple.

The night of Saturday December 21 the sky was pitch black, not even a star in the sky; the lights of the city of San Francisco absorbed the beautiful natural light of the sky.

I founded stars fascinating. When a star dies it still glows, even though it is not producing any energy. Unfortunately I could never glow, dead or alive. I consider myself, if you must know, a black hole.

I woke up at nine o' clock, I eat a bowl of chocolate flavored cereal, didn't bother to brush my teeth.

I heard Mom calling my name from upstairs, she accused me of stealing her heart shaped necklace her boyfriend had recently bought for her for their second anniversary. I told her she probably had left it in the bathroom.

Five minutes later, while I was staring in the mirror (I did this a lot, I liked discovering new things about my face I hadn't noticed before; most of the times I would find just a freckle or a pimple to be honest), my mom appeared by the door with the necklace dangling from her fingers.

'I know it was you.' she said with an accusing voice.

'Do you?' I answered still staring at the mirror, talking to her reflection.

'I found it inside your old ballerina shoes'

'Maybe Rocko did it' I said referring to our cat.

'Scar, I want to know why'

'But you do, don't you? You know everything' she didn't seem to take my sarcasm very well, she walked away silently, and before managing herself downstairs she muttered 'I always wonder'

Those words, as simple as they might seem, always killed me. When I was a little girl I didn't understood what she meant, but as I grew older I realized she was asking herself what would had been if I had never been born.

 I know she wishes she could turn back time, and see what happened if she had used a condom that night, the night the sperm from a needy teenager penetrated her ovule; the night that changed everything (well that was dramatic). 

At nineteen she had to take care of a baby, her dreams of becoming a high fashion model then seemed impossible. One day, when I was eight-years-old I think, she got a contract with a local modeling agency. After one or two jobs she quit, as she did a photo shoot that turned out to be for a gas station advertising. She blamed me of course, used to say that she would be in Paris by now if she had started at a younger age.

Don't get me wrong, I love my mother; I think. I mean everybody does, right? 

I know she loves me, she has to. But there is something off about our relationship, and I still can't quite put my finger on it. We don't enjoy each others company, most of the day she spends her time with Carl, while I eat alone in my room talking to Rowena on the phone, read a book, or watch a corny movie on Channel Four.  

Rowena and her mom are very close compared to us. They have this late night thing they do almost every Friday, were they sit on the couch, brew up tea, and watch independent movies until they fall asleep and the water from the kettle gets cold and gross tasting.

The truth is, I can't help but feel a little-tiny jealous of their mother-daughter bond. My mother is nothing like Maria Carolina, Row's mother. Maria has long grey hair and wrinkles, but her face looks quite young and fresh; I found this actually fascinating. Their house smells like a mixture of a bakery shop and Ralph Lauren perfume, which really makes you feel like home. 

Not like my house, that smells like dirty dishes and Latex. 

My mom is nice and all, but I have never once missed her forced empty smiles. Her hair is red, cheap red, you can see her black roots reappearing at the end of the month. 

Her name is Katharine, named after Katharine Hepburn, an actress of twentieth Century. She always makes sure to mention that when she meets someone new: 'Nice to meet you, I'm Katharine, but you can call me Kath. Oh, actually I was named after the actress. Katharine Hepburn? She helped redefine traditional views of women's role in society.'

Rubbish.

As thought that could make her less boring. She keeps blabbing about things she doesn't know the first thing about. 

Anyway back to the point, I knew my mother would probably be better without me and I was sure she was aware of that; even thought she would never admit this out loud.

I knew this because I sometimes overheard her conversations with Carl. They talked about romantic trips they wish they could do if I was more responsible to be left alone, about having more sex, taking cooking classes, and other crap.

The truth is they were to lazy to do any of this things, they always used my name as an excuse, so they basically just watched television in my mother's room.

Did I hid the (probably-bought-on-amazon-for-less-than-ten-dollars) necklace? 99% sure I did. The other 1% says my subconsciousness did it, but I am sure I was very conscious at the moment. But who knows?

The truth I'm not a big fan of good-old-Carl. He is only four years older than my mother, but his grey hair and bushy beard makes you kind of wonder if he lies about his age.

Mom gets crossed when I called him that, but sometimes I just can't help it; like for example every time he eat mom's homemade pasta his beard turnes into this weird spaghetti and tomato sauce collage.

So was Carl and my Mother the reason I was going to drown myself in the channel between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean?

Not really... That would be just depressing. I mean, there were less than two years left till I turn eighteen, and I could get a place for myself far from the lovely couple. 

But of course this wouldn't be necessary. 

As I was on the border of collapse.