'The most common form of despair is not being who you are.'
| four |
When I got home, Mom wasn't back, so I put all the food away and the leftover money on the counter, where Mom would see it. Then I went up to my room and checked what clothes I could wear tomorrow. And that's what I'm doing now.
Reagen hasn't stopped texting me and I haven't heard from Bumper in the whole afternoon, which is weird. Normally he texts me when he's bored. Reagen is asking me what she should wear but I can't help her because I don't know what I'm gonna wear.
We spend about an hour talking about the party and Alex and clothes and what time she will come over tomorrow. She's getting here at about half eight. The party starts at half nine, ten.
She keeps telling me that I should hook up with Alex, since he obviously likes me or else he wouldn't have come over to talk to me in the hallway or yelled at me at lunch. But I point out that guys can be friends and that's maybe why he came over in the hallway. She makes me promise that I'll think about it.
We still haven't decided on what clothes to wear when I hear Mom turning up outside. ''Finally,'' I mutter, getting up and going downstairs. I tell Reagen to come over tomorrow and bring a bag full of clothes and her pajamas, since she can stay at mine after the party. She agrees and bids me a goodnight.
When Mom sees me, she pulls me in for a hug and runs her long, thin fingers through my hair which is full of knots. ''Did you join a club?'' she asks, smiling as we pull away.
I nod, ''Track.''
Mom claps her hands together happily. ''That's gonna be so much fun! You start on Monday, yeah?''
''Yeah, I think. I won't be home till an hour later, probably.''
''That's fine, I'm not home that much anyway, since I'm working.''
''I'll try and keep the house tidy,'' I tease her and she laughs, knowing I will anyway. ''Oh and I'm going to a party tomorrow with Reagen and Bumper and Reagen's gonna stay over.''
Mom nods, saying it's fine. She's pretty much liberal when I say about parties and sleepovers. Even Bumper used to stay over. Before he turned out to be gay, as well. Mom lets me do pretty much everything I want. If I don't need much money anyway. She lets me do stuff because I help – or do most of the work – around the house, like clean, ironing, vacuuming and everything else. Mom works till seven, eight o'clock on most nights. It depends really. She leaves at eight, comes back at six or seven or eight pm. I think she works in an office of some sort. I don't know. Or at a shop. She changes jobs a lot.
We put a cheese pizza in the oven and pull out a pepperoni one, to have half of each pizza each.
We talk about the clubs and how well – or badly – I'm gonna do in them, then she asks me about my classes and how I'm doing in them. She also asks me if I have a boyfriend but I laugh at that and shake my head. Nope. And not because I don't want to. But like I said, that's another story. She asks about Reagen and Bumper, mostly about Bumper being gay. She's okay with that too, I mean, she's not freaking out or saying I can't hang out with him so that's good. I would still hang out with him though.
At about midnight, I take a bowl of cookie dough ice-cream upstairs with me and turn on my laptop, to watch a film, glad it's Friday.
