Living L.A.

Chapter 7

Rolling around in bed, a banana was smushed under my arm and a bowl of soggy cereal was greeting the floor with stale milk. Last night's events were a little hazy, first the fair, then dead mom, now I am  leaving, with a woman I hardly know.

The excessive pounding in my head never stopped as I got out of bed. My eyes took time to admire my little haven, not the most luxurious of scenes, but decent for my liking. Never have I thought I was actually going to leave this place, the only problem is that I don't know where I'm going.

Up the stairs came my father with a small, beaten up leather suitcase, it's days of travel well past its time.

"Well, let's get started, pack some of your clothes and your belongings."

Crossing over to my closet, I took out my two dresses - which my grandmother wore when she was my age, sad to say she had more curves than me, my only pair of shoes, and a hoodie. Then removed the rest of my clothing from the dresser.

"Alright, that's it."

His eyebrows quickly rose to the peak of surprise as he examined my meager and depressing wardrobe.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

He only released a small sigh. I don't no what he was expecting, I'm not the kind of person to walk around, buying clothes and shoes as I please, and that's because, any money that I saved is used to help put food on the table, which shouldn't be my responsibility in the first place.

Looking around the room for important things that needed to be packed, my eyes finally landed on my vast collection of books.

"I would like to bring my books."

He scanned the tower of books with impressed eyes.

"Ok, then pick some of you favourites and then we-"

"No, I mean, all of them."

He blinked slowly, looking at the books that nearly consumed the whole wall and then back at me. He had no idea how important these books were to me; they were what helped me to escape the screams of insanity. I would just read for hours until the story would become my reality. Any book you named, I most likely had. Encyclopaedias, dictionaries, fiction and non-fiction, I had everything from Anthropology to Zoology.

My father was breaking beads of sweat and the books weren't even packed in boxes yet, and trust me, not even two of the World Encyclopaedias would fit without damaging the suitcase.

"Why would I break my back carrying those books, it's not like you've read a lot of of them any way."

I chuckled to myself, he has no idea who I am, nor how ambitious I can be.

"Actually, I've read all of them, maybe three or four times for each."

By this time, he was panting like the dog he is.

"You mean to tell me, you read all of those damn books?"

I stepped back, insulted that he would actually refer to them in that tone. In hidden fury, I removed my last report card from under my mattress - I have to keep them in a safe place. Opening the envelope, I carefully pulled out the crisp document from its thin protection.

"You see this damn report card, you see these damn straight A's on this damn report card? Those damn 232 books over there helped me to gain damn success in that damn school you sent me to, and I intend to carry all of those damn 232 books with me, dammit." 

All he could do was crack a smile, as if I was joking.

"Well, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were doing this well in school."