Well Beyond Expectation

Chapter Eight.

Lena

           

Three more weeks drag by.

Every day I wake up, cram on the studying and homework I have until the last possible moment before I have to get out of the house and get to school. I mindlessly go through the motions while I'm there, then I leave and head for work. After work I come in so exhausted all I can manage is a shower to wash off the sweat and the smell of the place and then I pass out.

Next morning, repeat it all.

My alarm blares, and I reach out mechanically to slap it. I miss it the first time, hitting the glass of water on my table and send it spilling across my notebooks. "Shit!" I scream, jumping up from the bed and grabbing the first thing I can find, which is my blazer, and throw it on top of the spill, trying to soak up the water before it ruins my Chem homework I'd had to spend an extra hour on last night after I got home from work. "Shit, shit, shit." I curse over and over as the blue pen begins to bleed and I can no longer make out what was written in the first place.

I crumble back onto my bed, hand still wrapped around my now drenched and pen marked blazer while my alarm continues to blare.

WHY????

"Lena!" My uncle's voice wafts up the hallway. "Turn that shit off!"

Because that's just what this morning needs. Comments from the Uncle who is supposed to be taking care of me, but instead, I'm the one taking care of him. I grit my teeth and swing back up to silence the alarm while also throwing all of my ruined notebooks down to the floor too for good measure.

I want to scream, but instead I stand up, holding my hands on each side of my head for a minute and count to ten slowly before bending down and picking back up the books that aren't totally lost and I put them back up onto the table after I finish drying it off.

My room looks like a bomb dropped, but I don't have the time or the energy to think about it right now. I've got ten minutes to leave this house or I'll get stuck in traffic and miss homeroom again. They aren't going to be lenient on the poor girl with the dead brother forever.

I throw the blazer on the floor, it's not seeing the light of day before a trip to the dry cleaners, then rummage through the mountain of clothes in the floor until I find the least wrinkled looking white button up and school skirt I can find. Try as I might as I dress in a frenzy I can't find my uniform socks and honestly don't care enough to look any harder. I'll already be out of dress code without my blazer, so who care, right?

I run to the bathroom to brush my teeth, run a comb through my thick waves, then bound down the stairs two at a time. After quickly shoving my dirty clothes into the washer I lay out a bowl and box of cereal on the table for Terry when he finally decides to come down, throw away his empty beer bottles from dinner, grab my bag and run out the front door.

Terry's pickup is the only reprieve I have, nice and warm, the smell of old leather and gas making me feel a little more comfortable for the first time this morning. If I close my eyes I can pretend it's like old times when Beck and me used to steal Terry's truck and drive it up to the coast on Sunday mornings. But when I open my eyes and look over to the empty bench seat beside me, I know that daydreaming of better times is not going to make my life better.

Shoving the key into the ignition I turn the key and the truck rumbles to life, but when I throw it into reverse, pushing on the gas pedal, nothing happens. One look at the gas gauge tells me why. The meter manages to wag below the red EMPTY line and somehow I manage to laugh instead of cry.