I'm a Ruin - a.i

I

        My father tried his best. He honestly did. He never showered me with a multitude of inconsequential rules. He instead deemed me intelligent enough from a young sharp age of seven or eight to respectively decipher and learn right from wrong myself. When I turned sixteen and all my friends were only interested in partying and finding access to booze they could use to fill their vibrantly red cups, I wasn't enthusiastic on drinking. In fact, I was mortifying against it the moment my group of friends in high school began to be obsessed with those red cups. But I was a well liked individual at my school and at the time I was under the impression that if i didn't drink out of one of those red cups at the parties, I'd lose my friends and let it be noted I was not the greatest at making friends. I'd go to the parties but I'd always be holding a cup full of my sweet tasting apple juice from home instead of something bitter and disgusting such a beer. 

           My father heard from a couple of other parents that my friends and I threw parties and experimented with alcohol and recommended he keep me on a shorter leash. Although, a bottle of whiskey was my fathers best friend for years and years after my mothers death and I think the last thing he wanted to be was a hypocrite and confront me on it. In a lot of ways I wish he had though but he was a part of a majority that believed that if you told your child not to do something they would do it anyways. I have never thought there to be any truth to that but there was no changing my father's mind once it was made. Not until Natalie Clifford anyways.

           Natalie Clifford was the school counselor at my old elementary school in Cannon Beach. She is a very delightful sensible women who grew on me over time. When I was younger I couldn't help but question her genetics though. Her son, Michael, is a character. First of all, I don't think he showered more than once a week in our teenage years. His greasy hair and stench obvious proof. Secondly, I don't know who told him that striped shirts with plaid pajama pants passed as an appropriate outfit to wear to school, he still dresses like a bum even today.Lastly he was never not high and I don't know how he was capable of finding opportunities to get stoned every hour of a day without getting caught or maybe everyone knew but did not question it or care enough. I cared though because Michael Clifford became my step-brother.

       Yes, my father met Natalie Clifford in the teachers lounge on his second day of being a part of the janitor staff of Cannon Beach elementary when I was fifteen and married her a little over a year later. I hated the idea of my father getting remarried at first and was disgusted with him trying to replace my mom but when he had traded in his whiskey for a clean shaven look, it was hard for me to stay disappointed. And it became beneficial having Natalie around. She liked me and she wasn't only pretending to like some wicked step-mom would do and sometimes certain things were hard to talk to my father about. Especially boys and Natalie was good at giving advice. 

       Natalie also eventually knew about my friends and their parties too because when one of them got too out of control for me to handle, I called her number to pick me up from the party and not my fathers. I was afraid of what he would think of me. I still remember what Natalie Clifford said to me that night on the drive back to my house. I even still had one of those red cups in my hand on the ride home, forgetting to have thrown it away. "Elouise, remind yourself you don't always have to do what everyone else is doing." Natalie told me once she had pulled up to my house."Even if that is pretending." and she took the red cup from me and drank some of its contents. "Apple juice, hmm? "She winked.

       I decided I liked my step mom that day.

        Natalie could change my dad's mind about anything. If she said she didn't like the mossy green curtains in our living room windows, they absolutely had to go. The flannel shirts my dad wore everyday since he could remember turned out to be not something Natalie was a fan of, so they became a thing of the past. My god, she even got him to listen to classical music and my dad was a loud music kind of guy, he used to play the bass when he was younger in some garage band. My dad was whipped, and when him and Natalie got married it was only a couple years later when my half brother Quincey was born. I was seventeen. I had been the only child for fifteen years of my life and then all of a sudden Cannon Beach High's biggest stoner was my step brother and I had a baby brother barely two years later.