The Best Thing He Ever Wrote

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

I flip the over the next page in my calendar. A woman in a striped red bikini stares out at me; her long blond hair runs down her chest and back in a teasing manner. She smiles, her lips as red as a cherry. She leans upright against a lamp post, her back curving just near her but. She's attractive, but I personally disagree. I don't know why, but I think it makes me think of what she's doing to herself to make her stay looking that way.

Then I think of Cindy trying to do the same thing.

And Olivia.

I hook the calendar back up on its hook, its place on my white wall full of posters. Too many posters because I'd kept them up since I was thirteen and kept collecting until I was fifteen. Women, most of them, a few of cars and movies, but mostly women. I don't like them anymore and I haven't for quite a while now. The corners are beginning to turn upwards, some have little rips where I've rearranged them and others are faded from the sun.

I get up seeing it’s Sunday and I don't have any plans, I pluck each poster down one by one. I'll probably regret it tomorrow when I see my walls are bare and stained with blue-tack and sticky tape. Each woman seems to look at me, and I can't look at them back.

Kat.

Donna.

Candy.

Avril.

Then I pull down the others until my walls are white again and there are sticky marks left on them. But it's better now, fresher, and roomier. Little bits of dust fly around my room; I hadn't noticed my posters being so dusty. I scrunch them all up, just so I can regret this even more tomorrow, and then chuck them aimlessly into the bin that's been sitting empty for months in the corner of my room.

It'll be exactly one month and three days tomorrow as well, since I've started work. I haven't really spent a cent of my money, I haven't even bothered buying the CD's I've been wanting for at least six months now. I just let it build up only buying the small things I need like food and petrol.

I've lost count as to how long it's been since my mother stopped talking to me. I guess I can't really call it 'stopped talking' because every now and then she says something to me like, “Brandon, wash up the dishes.” , “Go get some milk.” or sometimes even, “Goodnight.”. But I don't really think that she doesn't want to talk to me anymore. I think she's just become so accustomed to it now that she's developed a habit and can't get out of it. I've also decided that since it's a fresh month and I haven't screwed it up yet, that I'm going to talk to Johnny. Tomorrow, in fact. It's about time that we lay down some fresh, walkable, ground. Other than Olivia these days and sometimes my father, they're the only people that I talk to. And I know for a fact that Johnny sees me coming to the school almost every day. He's not always out by the front, probably having days off, but I'm certain that he's seen me.

My father sits in front of the TV, silent and looking as still as a brick wall. A solider he reminds me off, I don't know if it is the way the he sits there or his square jaw or that his shirt is neatly ironed unlike mine, but he reminds me of one. I want to sit next to him and talk about something, anything, but I'm afraid that he'll reject me like my mother and I can't handle that right now.  I want to find Cindy and ask her if she'd like to go to town for ice-creams or hot fudge sundaes, my shout. But she isn't home and I know that she wouldn't eat them anyway, let alone be seen with me. I mean, I thought that younger siblings liked hanging out with their older brother or sister. I thought that I was meant to be the one telling her to stop bugging me. But it's the other way around and sometimes I feel as though I am the younger sibling.