The Beginning of the End

X.

By the course of my entire senior year story, Florence's death brought me right back to where I had been after Claire dumped my ass on that rainy summer day.

I was, well, nothing again.

I was of no worth.

The memories of seeing her immaculate body bloody, broken, ruined, and destroyed overwhelmed me from that moment on. It crushed me and filled me with an incurable feeling of sadness and an almost-too-familiar feeling of death.

The worst part of it all was that I resorted to what a now-isolated Dinah left me the one time she came over—a pack of cigarettes she hid within my tissue box, plus the lighter she had stolen off of Timothy when her addiction got much more aggressive.

To be a complete cliché, I felt that I wasn't worth anyone's time, and I honestly could have died and felt that no one would have noticed I was gone.

The time during and after her funeral was a really tough time for me. Christmas break rolled by with a very lonely Christmas dinner with my mom, sister, and some close family. Then again, I mostly kept quiet to myself in the corner. 

The worst part of it was that my grades were dropping. The thought of not being able to go to a college because of a D+ in English, which is my first language, really terrified me. But I had no motivation to even attempt to write my name on worksheets handed out, and I was sure that this was basically going to give myself a one-way ticket to homelessness in my future.

"You need to go."

I freaked the hell out when I realized it was my mom, fingers tapping my doorway fiercely and gloomy eyes staring into my blank ones.

"Huh?"

"You're going back to school," she stated, walking over to plant herself on the end of my checkered bedsheets. "I honestly could care less about what you're going to say, especially if it's out of protest. But I'm not going to have my kid, who used to be one of the smartest at that school, fail his senior year and have to restart it because of the death of some girl."

My heart erupted with fury. I got up, shoving my mom off my bed.

I shoved her off my bed.

I...

We both sat (or laid) there in silence. It was really quiet for what seemed like an hour as I saw the figure of my mom slumped there on the floor. She quivered, probably crying, and I was paralyzed. I didn't know what to say, and I didn't know if I could.

"I shouldn't have said that," she mumbled, her cheek sliding against the polished floors.

I sighed, getting up and reaching for a loose jacket and hanger. "No, you shouldn't. You should've kept your thoughts of Florence being an ordinary girl because YOU OBVIOUSLY DON'T CARE ABOUT ME AND VALUE MY FEELINGS!"

"I DO, JT, I DO!"

"THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT ME! I COULD HAVE DEPRESSION OR THE ANXIETY THAT YOU SUPPOSEDLY HAVE, BUT YOUR LAZY ASS HASN'T TAKEN ME TO A FUCKING DOCTOR TO GET MY FUCKED UP BRAIN CHECKED, HAVE YOU? HAVE YOU?"

The door opened with a slam. Georgia came in, innocent and tears streaming down her eyes.

"Why are you doing this to Mom?" she asked, reaching down to stroke my mom's hair.

"Because we're just having an ordinary argument like any other mother and son do, Georgia. Can you please just—"

"No. That's not an ordinary fight, JT. I'm not stupid."

Silence.

"Georgia, just stop, okay? You're too young to understand what's going on—"

"Stop... stop bullshitting me. I'M NOT A LITTLE GIRL! MONSTER. YOU'RE A MONSTER FOR WHAT YOU DID TO MOM!"