This Is Me

ten

"Don't comment this with your mother ok?" Ralph asks for the third time in 5 minutes and I nod.
We are in his basement playing and dorm the second time today he's doing something I don't understand. Ralph picks a little brownish-green cube a burns it with is lighter until it shreds, then he destroys one of his cigarettes and mixes the container with the shreds of that little cube, finally Ralph grabs a little piece off with paper, puts everything above it and then rolls it making the object look like a cigarette and starts smoking.
I'm still trying to figure out why all that work, however, I also notice that the smell is different. Mum has been smoking since she was fifteen so I know pretty well the smell of cigarettes but this one is different, it's more like the smell of grass being burned and not the dry, the wet and fresh grass. I can't say that it's a good smell but it certainly is better than mum's cigarettes.
"Let's play Resident Evil, Eleonor!" Ralph says and smiles.
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"We have this awesome private school just a few miles from home. Nothing special and I'm sure Eleonor will fit well there." Ralph's mother tells mum.
We're having dinner and mum brought up the matter that concerns my next school year. They're all talking like my school is too far away and since Ralph parents are rich they want me to leave public school and transfer for this private one that is closer.
I don't want to change school.
I don't want to be alone again.
I don't want to leave my friends.
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"Mother, father, Eleonor, I'm pregnant!" Mum announces...

Lets travel back in time.

It's 2004, I live in a different city, in a big apartment with my mother, her parents and my dad. We're a normal family, I'm a pretty happy kid that started her first years in school and even though I'm a little shy, I still have the ability to make friends.

Couldn't be happier until mother travels to open a bank account in another country. I was a small child but I always knew that my dad and money weren't a good combination. My dad wasn't a drug addicted or even a gambling addicted, my dad was addicted to spending money and that could be in anything, from a cologne to a car...

"Eleonor, where is your mom?" Dad asks while we are watching the Lion King.

Yesterday I heard mom and grandpa talking about this bank account that she wanted to open and she would do that in a different country so the money was safe. It was a small trip and mom would be back in the same day.

Dad was always a person with a bad memory. I mean his memory wasn't that bad but he got easily distracted and most of the times he didn't pay attention to a single thing we would say. Putting this, I thought that mom told him about the trip and that he had just forgotten about it.

"Mom went to open a bank account, don't you remember daddy?" I ask and give him a toothless smile. This was the year I lost my two front teeth so you can imagine the garage I had in my mouth.

Dad gives me a reassuring smile and doesn't say anything. We go back to the movie.

I hear a key click at the front door. Its already past dinner time and mother is finally home.

I run to the door and jump into her arms giving her a tight hug.

"I missed you mom!" I say and give her a quick peck in the cheek.

"I missed you too Eleonor" Mom says and puts me back on the floor. "Hey Peter!" Mom says to dad.

"Where were you?" he asks her. I realise that dad is extremely mad at mom just by the way he was glaring at her.

"I was out with some friends." Wait, what?

I'm sure I heard her say she was traveling with grandpa so why is she lying now?