Hush.

1::Flicker

“Mom, you have to get up.”

The crumpled heap on the bedroom floor groaned, mumbling something completely incoherent to my ears. I sighed heavily, prodding her with my foot.

“Seriously, Mom,” I persisted. “I’ve let you lie around for three days, but you need to start picking up some of the slack.”

She didn’t move.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “Have it your way. You can rot here, for all I care.” And with that I stormed out of her room, ignoring anymore moaning pleads she made.

A typical day in my house, but whatever.

I trotted into the kitchen, still dressed in pajama pants and a tank top. School didn’t start for another two hours, but there was a lot to get done before then. Since it wasn’t like I had copious amounts of free time after school, I had to suck it up and get my ass out of bed earlier. But, hey. You did what you had to do.

I flicked on the meager light in the kitchen, plopping down at the small metal table with the uneven legs and the mismatched chairs. The mail was strewn on top, worn envelopes of bills displaying their age and predicting how close to the deadline we were to having to pay them off. I almost didn’t even want to open them. It would be so easy to flick those measly pieces of paper into the fireplace, and watch them go up in flames, and blame the entire thing on my mother. Maybe it would get her ass off the floor and doing some legitimate work. She was lucky CPS hadn’t done anything. Some idiot neighbor a while back had thought something was up when my dad came in drunk and aggressively announced that my mother was a “goddamned bitch” and that “he didn’t want no part of her anymore”, packed up all his shit, and left. Of course, the fact that my mother was shrieking like a madwomen and hurling bottles at him while she was still inside the house, and shattered all our windows, didn’t help.

And guess who had to replace those windows?

Yeah. Me.

But anyway, a CPS guy did come, and I was able to pull some miracle out of my ass and paint the lovely picture for him that everything in my life was as perfect as it could possibly be, that they must have had the wrong house, because my mother surely wasn’t high and grieving in the upstairs bathroom, no, sir, she was out shopping for groceries.

If you were convincing enough, people believed anything you told them.

And it was about around that time I became responsible for everything.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, the feeling of independence was great. Except, of course, for the times I remembered I was really just seventeen and still in school, and balancing a job, being swim team captain, head journalist, and crap loads of homework every night. And the fact that my friends had no idea who I was.

I wished I could say it wasn’t because I was ashamed of my life, or my family, but I would be lying. Courtney Perkins, for example, was equipped with both a mother and a father, who had so many Benjamin Franklin’s lying around that they opened a golf course just outside of Heart, never knew a working day in her life. And Lena Miller, whose Dad isn’t home much but only because he’s some corporate CEO and is overseas making the big dollar signs, wouldn’t know a pay stub if one hit her in the face. Needless to say, mentioning the little tidbit that my daddy left me and my mother tries spending what little money we have on drugs wouldn’t earn me many brownie points.

I set aside the bills, procrastinating until the time I’d have to see the amount and know something would have to give. Plumbing or electricity? You couldn’t have both.

So I started on breakfast, bacon and eggs, enough for two, even though I was nearly certain my mother was spending another day on the comfort of her hardwood floor. Whatever. If she didn’t eat, more for me after school.