Life's Challenges.

Part five

5.

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Once we were back home I went straight to bed after telling my mom about me and Emily’s plans for the weekend. She thought it was a good idea and told me to get some sleep for school tomorrow.

                                      The next morning when I woke up I was almost excited about having Emily over this weekend. I figured that if she was over the weekend would either crash and burn or be pretty fun with her there. I got up and went down stairs. I was still wearing the same clothes I did yesterday because I fell asleep in them. Mom was not up yet so I got down a box of cereal and a bowl. I grabbed the milk out of the fridge and a spoon out of the drawer. That was almost the first thing that mom unpacked was the food and dishes. Well what we had of food. It was a blessing that Brad let us eat there last night other-wise we would have had macaroni and hot dogs again. I did not want that. I had had that meal for the last five days. Tonight we would probably have the same thing but at least I had one night of a break. I took the things I had grabbed back up to my room but before i started eating I got dressed in more comfortable clothes. I opened up my box of clothes and grabbed a pair of red basketball shorts and a white tank top. I threw my old clothes down the laundry chute. Mom would have to do the laundry today. My boxes were getting empty and I still had school for the rest of the week. I looked out the window and at my digital alarm clock for the first time today. It was still dark outside but my clock said that it was 5:30. I had half an hour till I went to school. My clock would go off in five, now four minutes. Then my mom would be up and she would make sure I went to school and didn’t skip. Then I almost guarantee she would go back to sleep like any other day. I hoped that the day would go by fast so I could go back over to Emily’s house afterwards. Brad said that I could come over any day that my mom had work and I could stay there until my mom got home. He said that he would most likely cook us dinner but probably not tonight because he would have to go shopping so we would eat leftovers or I would eat at my house. I decided on leftovers. Emily wanted to eat at my house but I persuaded her that my mom’s cooking skills were good but I did not want to eat there tonight because I knew what we would be having.

          At school I asked Aiden and Bryce if they wanted to come over this weekend and hang out. There was two people so far. Depends how many people Emily brought, we could have a real backyard baseball game. I also asked Gwen and Luke. They were coming too. I asked Dylan. He had plans. I was going to ask Nick but decided to wait and see what my limit of people was and see how many people Emily was bringing. I did not want to give my mom too many to provide for.

          By this weekend I planned to have most boxes unpacked and the rest put down in the cellar for a couple days until everyone left and we could finish unpacking, then I would have them over again to see my finished house. I was now definitely excited that I would have people over. People to keep me company over the weekend.

          Whenever I was alone I thought. I thought long and hard about things that bothered me. The one topic I thought about most was my dad. Nobody knew that he would die so severely and fast and unexpected. We all thought we would have some kind of warning when any of us died. Not saying that we just sat there and thought about each-other dyeing but I'm sure none of us wanted it then or was expecting it.

          "The heart attack that killed him was only one fatal attack and that was it. I got called out of class in 2nd hour only to hear that something very bad had happened to my father and that my mom was coming to get me to bring me to the hospital. By the time we got there my dad was gone and there was no way to bring him back. Nobody knew what had happened or what caused it. Only about 6 months later did it come time that I would socialize with other people. My mom could not get me to eat for days at a time. I would drink but only out of my dad’s favorite mug so it was not much at a time. Finally, at the end of the second trimester, the school called my mom wondering why I was not at school. After that she said that I was going insane and strictly told me that I need to get out of the bed(my mom had been sleeping on the couch because I would not sleep anywhere other than my dad’s side of the bed...when I did sleep.) and go to school otherwise she was going to drag me there. I reluctantly went but socialized with no-one. My teachers called on me a few times but I just shrugged and lay my head back down. The school felt that I still needed a couple of weeks to recuperate but that was the deadline.2 weeks. They said that if I did not come back soon then they would fail me and hold me in 6th grade again. My mom succeeded in getting me to go to school every day but I did not start talking to people until about my 2nd month back in school. It was pretty crazy. My mom thought a couple of times about bringing me to my father’s grave but decided against. It might have sparked another thought and my sickness would start all over. She even sent me to counseling a couple times. That did not work either."

"Wow. I'm sorry. That must be troubling. You know what, visiting your dads grave was not a good idea anyways."

                   "No, I was actually going to ask if you would go with me. I finally worked up the courage to be sure that I will not break down again. I mean, you don’t have to. I'll go alone. I just figured that having someone else there would give me some support."I was back home now, actually, at Emily’s house.