Ordinary

* CHAPTER 1 *

Webster dictionary describes hell as a place or state of misery, torment, or wickedness. If this is true, then school is the epitome of hell. This thought began to fill my mind as I sat and looked at the stupid little bubble sheet on the stupid little desk in that stupid little school.

I was taking the semester final that marked the halfway point of senior year. I looked at the clock and saw that there were 5 minutes left and I had only gotten halfway through the final. 

The teacher was too wrapped up in a sappy romance novel to pay any attention to the class. So I turned to the girl next to me, quickly copied the bubbles, walked the paper up to the front of the room, and placed it on the teacher's desk. I basically had to stop myself from skipping out of the school. I so desperately needed the short 2 weeks that our school calls "winter break".

I lived in a small little town in California. And when I say little I mean LITTLE. If it weren't for our famous amusement park we probably wouldn't even be on the map. And when I say famous I mean we get at least more than 100 people a day. So famous probably isn't the best word to describe it. I've worked there for 2 years with my best friend, Meg. We've been friends since freshman year and we basically do everything together.

I walked out the front door to my car. Meg was already leaning against the side of my car by the time I got there.

Now, my car is definitely nothing special at all. It's cheap and used because I had to buy it with my own money, like most things I own.

"Took ya long enough", Meg said.

"You know, not all of us were gifted with brains", I said as we both got into the car.

I turned the key in the ignition and was greeted with a nice gust of air from the vent.

"It's cold", Meg complained.

"Meg, you don't know cold until you've endured a Chicago winter." I lived in Chicago throughout my entire childhood.

I took the car out of park and drove it out of the parking lot. We drove down the road and I watched the surfer dude on my dashboard dance to the beat of the bumps in the road.

"Are you excited for work tomorrow?", Meg asked. At the theme park, I worked a roller coaster called Magic Escape and Meg worked in the game tents.

"Totally", I answered with a completely monotone voice. She laughed at my sarcasm. Standing in the sun for hours and pressing a button every three minutes was not fun. But even though this job was not the best job I could have, it was much better than bagging groceries or some other boring shit like that.

I pulled into the driveway of my mom's house. I call it my mom's house not because my parents divorced. No, my dad died in a car crash when I was in 8th grade. But there's not much to feel bad about, when he was alive he was always at work and on the rare occasions he was home he was crabby and acted like an ass.

When we walked into the house my mother was sitting on the couch staring at the tv screen as some talk show played. My dad died 4 years ago and yet my mother still had not left the house since. She quit her job and became "emotionally unstable". The only reason we still have a roof over our head is because of what my father left in his will. He had made a good amount of money in his lifetime. Enough to keep us afloat when he died.

But my mother didn't think about that. She didn't really think about anything anymore. If she wasn't drunk, she was sleeping or watching tv.

Meg and I walked into my room and kicked our shoes off. I laid down on my bed and Meg sat in the bean-bag that was propped up in the corner of my room. We sat in my room on our phones talking about how happy we were that we were nearing the end of our high school careers. The clock hit 5:30 and Meg stood up.

"I gotta motor. My mom wants me home for dinner." We walked to the front door together. Before leaving Meg hugged me "I'll see you tomorrow."

"See ya." I watched her walk to the car and the closed the front door.

"I like that girl"

I turned toward my mom. Her eyes were still glued to the tv.

"I know." 

"Why can't you be smart like her. She's really gonna go places"

"I know", I said again through clenched teeth.

She changed the channel to an infomercial station, and I slipped my light jacket and converse on and left to go to the 7-eleven. The sky was pitch black and nothing lit the road but my headlights. I turned into the parking lot and parked my car.

The bell rang when I walked through the door and I went right to the slushy machine in the back. I filled the cup with red slush and paid for it at the front, then went back to the car.

I drove down the empty road following a memorized map in my head to one of my favorite places. I stopped the car at the edge of the forest preserve and walked to the large rock that sat in the middle. I found this spot when I tried to run away from home at age 15 when we first moved here.

I put my slushy on top of it and then hoisted myself up. The top of the rock was somewhat flat and pretty comfortable to lay on. It had been my go-to place ever since we moved to California. My sanctuary. So I just laid there and looked at the stars, taking an occasional sip of the slushy. I tapped my finger against the rock to the beat of a song in my head and just waited until my mind was clear enough to return home.

When I realized that that was never going to happen I decided to go home. My mother fell asleep on the couch so I crept through the living room as quietly as I could. When I got to my room I changed into my pajamas, which consisted of sweatpants and an old t-shirt, and then went to bed.