new things (jalex short story)

6

My mother drove to my fathers house as slow as she could without inconveniencing other drivers. I went to his house every Wednesday night. The drives there were usually quite but this one she had spent the whole drive trashing my father. I liked him, he was a nice guy. But his love for me was empty. It was there but empty. Which gave me the smallest amount of resentment towards him.

"You know he cheated on me right? And he doesn't even pay all the child support he's supposed to. That's just because I'm nice to him!" She continued. Droning on and on and on. She just wouldn't stop. And soon as she pulled into the drive way I shot out the car and up to the front step of his house, knocking on the door.

"Hey Jack, how was school?" He asked, like he always did. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. I hugged him back then looked out as my mother drove away. I watched my dad smile at her and wave and she drove off, muttering, "I hope you crash, you bitch,"

I ignored it like usual and went inside. I saw my stepsister sitting on the couch watching some weird kids show.

"Hey Alli!" I yelled as I ran up to her and tickled her. She jumped up and wrapped her arms around my neck.

"Jacky!" She yelled as she kissed my cheek, "Jacky I'm watching tv!" She to me seriously as she pointed to the tv.

"Yeah, that's cool," I said as I set her down on the couch again. I turned around and saw my dad sitting at the breakfast bar with my stepmother. I walked up and rubbed her back, "hello, Marry. How are you?" I asked. Knowing that she gets annoyed if you don't speak in proper English.

"I'm well, Jack. And you?" She asked as she turned and smiled at me.

"I'm okay. What do you guys want for dinner?" I asked. Knowing by now that every second week I had to make dinner.

-

I lied down in their spare room bed. They only had this room and people visited them all the time so I didn't get my own room. Not that I needed one. I didn't ever keep anything there. As I looked up at the roof that Mary and Allison had painted, I though about how we're a lot like stars. Not the ones painted on the roof by an art teacher and her two year old daughter.

We're like the stars in the sky. We're born, we live not serving much purpose other than to light up the sky and then we die. And we can also be quite cold. But I definitely felt like I was thousands of light years away from everyone.

This girl in my History class was talking about how she'd be immoral if she could be. But it hate that. The world would just be over populated with no one dying. And you would only eve die if someone killed you or at the end when the sun kills us. Which would be a horrible sufferable death. I'd much rather die of old age. Then Zack and I said if we had the choice to right now, we'd die or be killed. To which the teacher asked us we were okay. Zack tried to assure the teacher he was, but the teacher gave me a worried look when I smiled at his question.

The prospect of dying just suddenly seems so attractive to me. They say that people who are depressed are generally smarter. Are we smarted because we see the world for what it is? Because everyone seems to know more than me. Get grades than me. I'm just stupid.

I knew I was stupid, and no matter how much people said shit like you're so smart! No you're not stupid! You're just not trying hard enough! I am. I stupid. I'm just smart enough to know that literally everything we do will mean nothing. Sure, we can try to improve the world, but in a million or so short years, it's not going to matter. I don't like doing things that don't matter, and that's why I don't do anything. It's all pointless.

And with those thoughts, I thought to myself existential. That must be why I'm so depressed lately. That explained quite a bit, thankfully. But did it explain all of it? Did it explain why I hadn't killed myself yet? Because those thoughts had gotten stronger. I knew they had and I just absolutely did not want to hear the fact that hey! My names Jack, I'm sixteen years old, I'm an absolute loser, and I'm depressed!

All of the mental pain, you'd think it'd stop after a while. Its would give up. But no, it won't stop until you let it in. You let it in by hurting yourself. And as soon as you did, it was there to stay. It would tear you apart, piece by piece by piece. And the only way to fix it- no, not fix, mute it every one in a while- was therapy. You could always go to therapy. Pay some stranger to listen to all your first world problems. All the while you're sitting there, you know they're writing down notes but you know they're not listening. They don't actually care. They want money. They couldn't just have some complete stranger come into their life and say woowee! You're depressed. If you pay me way too much for an hour I will make myself care and cherish you. No. That's absolutely not how it works.

And that pissed me off. It pissed me off that people would listen to you complain for an hour, the whole time promising that they're not going to tell anyone because they're not allowed to and then they tell their kids, or their husband, wife. They know they're not allowed to, but hey, why not? Its not like their kids go to the same school. They may not know who you are but they know what's wrong with you.

"Jack?" I heard a knock on the door, "Jack?" This time the door opened. It was Allison. She smiled when she saw me looking at her and ran up to my bed, jumping up and landed on my face. I picked her up and held her in the air above my face as she laughed.

"It's time to get up!" She said, I pulled her close and cuddled her, rolling onto my side. I pulled the blankets over her head and she smiled again.

"Nah, I'm going back to sleep, night night time," I told her. She put her hand over my face and squealed when I tried to bite her fingers.

"Jacky, mummy said ten minutes!" She said, like she'd remembered. To that, though, I got out of bed and started getting ready. She sat on my bed, watching me get changed, "Jacky, what's that?" She said pointing. I looked where she was pointing the quickly pulled my jeans up.

"It's nothing Alli, some people just get a little bit sad. Don't worry about it," I said with a smile. Its not like she'd even remember. I pulled my shirt over my head and shoved it back into my bag, then slid another one over my head.

When I made it to the bus, which was a different bus to usual because mine doesn't come this way. As I walked on a younger kid caught my attention, he was jumping around and laughing, this bus goes the the preschool too. But behind him was a girl I knew, she was the sister of another guy in my grade. She was usually happy. I think she moved schools for a short time when she was in grade six but came back. But the part that I noticed the most was the cuts covering her arms. She was trying to hide them, they were on both sides. I knew what her family was like, I was briefly friends with her brother, I used to talk to her all the time and make jokes about him.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, she looked up at me and smiled, nodding her head. When she moved schools we stoped talking to each other. She's in grade seven now. A little girl like her shouldn't be doing things like that. That a horrible habit to get into. And I've only done it maybe five times.

I walked off toward the back of the bus and found Rian. He always saved a seat for me when I was here. I plopped down next to him and groaned.

"What's up kid?" He asked. I looked at him and frowned.

"I did a bad," I told him. He raised his eyebrow, asking for elaboration. I lent closer to him, "I may have kissed Alex," I whispered into his ear.

He snorted and started laughing. I hit his leg and yelled at him to shut up, "what do I do? I don't even know why I did it. He was just there!"

"You slut!" He gasped, then continued laughing.

"You're an asshole," I told him.

He'd grabbed my hand and smiled, "Oh, hunnie, I know,"