The Completely Random Adventures of August and Lena

August Runs Away

It always makes me feel weird whenever I walk to August's house by myself. Even though we spent basically all of the summer playing together, I still feel out of place in his neighborhood. Okay that's an understatement. I feel like an alien. My neighborhood may be a few streets away, but it's a completely different planet than August's.

My mom and Dan have been fighting a lot about it lately.

"Tracy, I can't just up and buy a damn house for my hooker girlfriend and her mentally deranged daughter!" Dan yells, slamming down his Miller Beer.

Cocoa starts yipping at my mom, so she kicks him and screams at Dan, "Maybe she wouldn't be so fucked if you would stop touching her!"

"Oh yeah, here we go again." Dan rolls his eyes while yelling. "Are you really so jealous you can't even handle me givin' attention to an eight year old?"

"You are such a sick bastard, Dan." My mom wipes the tears from her eyes angrily. "You need to get us out of this damn ghetto, or I'm leaving."

She goes to walk past him and he grabs her hair, pulling her back. "Listen here you haughty little slut." He talks quietly now, which makes me even more uneasy than when he screams. Tears start sliding silently down my cheeks as I watch my mom struggle to pull her hair out of Dan's fist. He keeps talking, "You're crazy if you think anyone's gonna treat you better than me. I've given you a home, I don't hit you, I please you, I treat you so goddamn right and you need to start showin' me respect. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Dan, please let go." My mom begs him while crying. "Dan please, you're hurting me, please let go, I understand. I'm so sorry."

He looks at her for a second, but from where I'm standing there's nothing in his eyes. No anger, nothing. They're just blank. Finally he lets go.

My mom holds her long, dirty blonde hair in her hands and then runs past Dan to our room, where I'm watching from. I look up at my mom from our bed and wipe the tears from my face quickly, as she quietly closes the door. She comes over and sits next to me before laying her head on my lap.

I run my fingers through her hair, brushing it out. "Mom, Dan's not my daddy, right?" I ask

"No." She says sadly, her tears running down onto my legs.

"Did my daddy die?"

"No." She says again. "He doesn't know about you. We just had a one night stand and then we never saw each other again. He's out there somewhere."

I know what a one night stand is from previous talks with my mom. It means they didn't love each other, so they had sex one night and then just never talked again.

"August Dalian's mom, was dating your daddy, Matt, when we had sex. That's why she hates me. I broke them up."

"Wait is August my brother?" I wrinkle up my nose.

"No, no. August's mom and August's dad are married. They love each other." Her voice breaks as she says love and she starts sobbing again. She holds onto my leg tighter and curls up her body while she cries into my lap. 

I'm hearing my mom cry from last night when I realize that I'm in August's backyard and it's not my mom crying. It's August.

I sit down right next to him and rub his back. I've never seen August cry before, so I should be uncomfortable, but I've been around crying people so much that I'm used to it. There's so much tears in the world, I don't know how we're all not drowning.

"I don't wanna go to school tomorrow." He sobs.

"Why not?" I ask. August has been excited for school to start since the beginning of this month. He's been trying to get me excited too, so I don't know why he suddenly doesn't want to so bad.

"Because my tennis shoes are old and my mom won't buy me new Nike's." He cries harder.

"You're crying because your mom won't buy you new shoes?" I frown.

He stands up and starts putting some stuff into the Nike bag he uses for basketball. Then he throws it over his back. "I'm running away. My parents don't love me so I'm running away forever." 

"Okay, August," I stand up, actually really angry now. "You know I'm never mean to you but right now you need it. You don't get to say your parents don't love you! You have the biggest house I've ever seen in my life and no matter what your mom and dad stop work to eat dinner with you and ask you how your day was. They probably even tuck you in at night, too! Your mom and dad would do anything for you, and just because they won't buy you a brand new pair of expensive shoes doesn't mean they don't love you! You have it so good and you don't even know. You're spoiled and right now you're being a real jerk."

I finally stop yelling and take some deep breaths, scowling at him. He's standing there with his mouth open a little bit. After a few seconds he closes his mouth and starts chewing on the inside of his cheek. He does this when he's thinking.

Then he stops and walks over and hugs me. I'm surprised for a second and then I realize what's happening and I stiffen up. I don't like being touched. He either doesn't notice it or he ignores it, because he keeps hugging me and he says, "You're right Lena. Thank you. I was being really stupid."

He lets go and I force a smile.

He laughs, hard. Then I laugh too, because I know my smile is crazy. 

"I love you, Lena." He laughs.

I wrinkle up my nose because love isn't really a subject that makes me comfortable, but seeing my expression just makes him laugh more. So I laugh again, too.