Can't Live Without Her

chapter five

My alarm goes off at 6 am. The first day of school. Though I'm dreading this, at least I'll get to see Martina today. If anything good comes out of today, it'll be getting to talk to her.

I walk downstairs and I wake up to an empty house. I walk down to the hall where my brother and sister lay asleep. I walk past them into the kitchen and get them breakfast ready. I just quickly cook them some pancakes, pour them juice and lay out their vitamins. I go downstairs and pull my uniform and theirs out of the dryer. I fold theirs and place them on their dressers.

Now I go and wake them up. They're reluctant to get up, but they don't bother fighting me. They know how stressed out I am.

Once I know they've eaten their breakfast, taken their vitamins and have gone off to their rooms to get dressed, I make my way back upstairs to my room. I quickly get dressed and clean up a bit and then walk back downstairs.

I look out my window and my dads car is gone. I sigh. A goodbye would've been nice, but it's not like I'm expecting one at this point...

I tell Joey and Dody to hurry up and brush their teeth and comb their hair. They're mostly dressed and ready, but I'd rather not risk being late on the first day. All of the teachers already hate me without reasoning, lets not give them something to yell about.

My mom walks downstairs in a hoodie and jeans. Today's Monday, so I'm pretty sure she has work. She makes a brief acknowledgement of my presence, and continues into the bathroom to straighten her hair and do her makeup.

Within about ten minutes, we are all in the car and on our way to school. The ride there takes exactly 5 minutes, but I always add one minute in case we get caught by the light on 103rd. The car ride to school is silent, as it is most days, because Joey and Dody are too tired to even argue and my mom is always so out of it. I'm the only "morning person" in my family, and even saying that is a stretch.

And with that, we've finally made it to school. I see all of the kids crowded at the main entrance and suddenly feel simultaneously a weight lifted off of me and another burden put directly back on. Seeing all of the kids and knowing that this is going to become my new home, just like it has year after year, is a welcome sight. I missed seeing my friends, stupid gym classes, ugly uniforms, pointlessly walking the halls to get out of class, birthdays, getting into fights with teachers, but most of all I missed the environment of the place. The way it felt like home. Most of my childhood was spent here, I don't know how I'm gonna handle leaving it, but that's a different days problem. I loved the way teachers would smile at me with a "Mornin' Nell" everyday. I loved the structure of it. The way I would say "have a good weekend" to the same teacher on the same corner every single Friday. The schedule was so perfectly unorganized and I loved it.

That's not all that school reminded me of though. For every great memory, there was an equally bad bad one. School might have reminded me of home, but no home was perfect. This home had memories of tears in the office because I forgot an assignment. It had scars. It had so many people who despised me, who would've loved to see me fail. It had adults, who didn't like me because I wasn't a cookie cutter perfect kid. It had recess fights, feeling like I would never fit in, panic attacks in the bathroom, and people who hated me just to hate me. Most of the best and worst days of my life so far have been spent here, and like most homes, it's a little broken, a little dysfunctional, but it's also mine. I come out with a couple scrapes and bruises, it's manufactured more than a couple scars, but scars fade and bruises heal. The place will always stay and always be there for me. That's all that matters to me.