Rewind

Chapter One - Just Another Day

As usual, I skipped the bus and just took the 40 minute walk home from school. Taking the bus means sitting with all the people who’ve done nothing but give me dirty looks and talk about how weird I am behind my back. People who’ve done nothing but make me feel like more of an outcast than I already was in the few years that we’ve all been cooped up together in this prison they like to call highschool. Taking the bus home means getting home faster, and there’s nowhere I want to be less than the crowded 3rd story apartment that I share with Mom and my soon to be step-dad, Kyle.

I walk through the door and smell the stench of cigarettes and beer that perfume the family room. Mom was at work so here I was, home alone. As always. At least I could use this opportunity to have peace and quiet. It’s a little hard to focus on my doodling when all I hear through the walls is shouting and yelling from Kyle. Whether it’s at Mom or the TV depends on his sobriety.

Sometimes it feels like music and art the only two things I have. People always say that I’m too spacey or that I spend too much time in my head, but little do they know that the reason my mind keeps drifting away is because I have nothing to hold onto in the real world. Every day my dad would go to work at 9 and come back at 7. But one day when I was 10, he went to work and just never came back. I grew up without any real dad, and the last thing I want is for another man to walk into my life. Kyle is the worst person I’ve ever met and if I need a father figure in my life, it’s certainly not him.

I don’t even have any friends. Freshman year I tried to branch out and meet new people, but all I got in return was fake friends and hurtful rumors, so I decided that maybe a social life just wasn’t meant for me.

I’m a lot lonelier than I’d care to admit. I spend all my time alone in my room. My world has done nothing but bring me sadness and loss. Listening to music helps me escape to a new world that doesn’t seem quite so bad. I needed some sort of creative outlet so I picked up a pen and started doodling how I felt. Since then I never really stopped doing it.

After about four hours, Mom finally walked through the door. 8 p.m.and she’s just now arriving home. Her loud, uneasy footsteps made it easy to tell that she had been drinking, but I give her the benefit of the doubt and don’t let her realize I know.

“Hey mom, why are you getting home so late?” I shout through the thin dry wall with a tone that I almost immediately regret. Mom tends to be very sensitive when talking about her drinking habit. It’s put her in the hospital, gotten her placed in court mandated rehab, and even arrested. Bringing up the fact that she’d rather drink than deal with her countless issues doesn’t really help her already emotionally unstable mental health.

“Sorry sweety, I forgot to call. I had to stay late at work tonight to finish a project.” She was lying. Mom used to work for the local newspaper. The job paid her well and she seemed to really enjoy doing it. Even though she was an extremely talented journalist, her numerous “sick days”, absences, and lazily written excuses got her fired. She leaves the house every morning to go and work at McDonalds. She continues to tell me that she’s still a journalist, mostly because she’s ashamed and doesn’t want to give me another reason to hate my already terrible life. I let her believe that I’m unaware of her current employment so that this family doesn’t become more of a mess than it already is.

It’s only 8 o'clock but I’m ready for this day to be over, so I go to sleep just hoping that tomorrow will be a little less terrible.