Glass Hearts

V

Christine

It was hard trying to explain to my brother what had happened earlier that day. He didn't seem to believe me, but was to busy to deal with me. By the times I had arrived home he had to rush to work. I dragged myself to my bedroom, throwing my body onto my bed. I looked at my phones screen. Five texts from Matty, two calls. I'd better answer her.

I dialed.

"H-Hello?" My voice grew weak in fear, was she infuriated with me?

"Where the-" she was screaming so loudly that I had to hold the phone away from my ear, "have you been!?"

"Um..." It took me a minute to think.

"Well!?" Matty was clearly showing no patience.

"Well... Roy came and knocked Joseph down -I think- and then dragged me away to his hideaway. We briefly talked before he left to go somewhere... Then I um... Did my homework, sketched, and then passed out... Roy woke me up when my brother called and then-"

"I don't want your freaking life story Christine. I mean, why were you fighting Joseph? I finally got him to agree to talk with you and you fight him?"

"But-"

"No buts! I want you to apologize to him tomorrow!"

"Oka-" She hung up on me

I have such wonderful friends. I sat at my desk, looking over the first sketch I drew about two hours ago. They did look happy, but I no longer felt happy. I felt depressed. I wanted to start crying again. Turn the waterworks on and throw away the controller.

I snuck over to my mother's room. I creaked the door open, her head popped up. She gave me such a warm smile that I couldn't help but smile back. I sat next to her at her bedside.

"Hi mom." I greeted, hiding everything that was going wrong in my life.

"Hey sweetie." Her voice felt so comforting, I hugged her, she pat my head and twisted my hair around her fingers.

"Is there something going on dear? Did you need to talk with me?"

"Oh, of course not." I threw on a fake smile, "I just wanted to see how your day was."

"I felt better today, better than most days lately. I was even able to step out onto the balcony for a little bit this morning. " I felt do happy, it was a small but important accomplishment to her.

"That's great. I'm so happy for you. It must have felt great for your lungs to breathe the outside air."

"Kinda," she said with a chuckle, "humanity has kinda polluted the air. It tasted pretty bad."

"Well the view must have been nice."

"Yeah, I haven't seen a sunrise in quite some time."

We stayed silent for a brief moment. Mom still laid in her bed, looking up at the ceiling. Some of her hair draped down the bed, I fiddled with a few strands of her blonde hair, braiding it. Sometimes I felt so horrible for her. How sick she was, and how we couldn't afford it. We could barely afford the few machines in her room. It's why Luke works so much. I would be working for mom, or at least trying to scrape for money, but she wanted me to have a normal school life. Joseph is supposed to be at college, but he works multiple jobs to try and make ends meet.