Part of the reason I don't have any memory of my father is because we never made any. Before he left my mum and I behind, my father made negative amounts of effort to get close to me. We didn't do those things you see father-son pairs doing in movies. No prolonged fishing trips in the pond, followed by nearly falling in, no lectures about the future, no long drives to races where you know your preferred driver's going to lose beforehand, but you go anyway just because you like to laugh. There was no chance for bonding or exchanging of masculinity tips, no time to talk about the women. Finally, I was never given the chance to enjoy my father. But the very day I turned six years old, my father didn't come home for work. I'm now seventeen, and I'm still waiting. When I was sixteen, a cloud covered my light, and my mum died. There was a horrible accident, my grandmother had told me. I remember that conversation entirely, exactly a year later. Later that night, I went upstairs and attempted suicide. It's one hell of an experience to feel so damn hopeless that you're driven to thinking the only way out, the only way to feel better, is to take your own life, not even thinking about what might happen to everyone else around you. You think the whole thing's fucking crazy until your life is taken away from you. Now, I'm seventeen, leaning against the brick wall of a condemned building, smoking cigarettes with a group of people I don't even know. It's a different crowd every day. The same people don't dare to show up more than once. Raising suspicion, and all that, more government conspiracy. Someone's talking about their alcoholic dad, a girl with scars on her wrists and red hair dye stains on her neck, that if you squint your eyes and stand back far enough, look exactly like hickeys. I assume that was her motive. I try to think up a story entertaining enough to top her story about her father throwing beer bottles at his own vehicle, thinking it was their neighbours'. I thumb through the vinyl library of memories in my brain of recent events. Sunday, my grandmother knitted her chihuahua a pink sweater. Too sweet. Last Tuesday, my uncle came over for dinner and asked about my grades and I told him to ask me when I care. Too lame. Living with your grandparents is the best and the worst thing that you could go through. My grandmother makes the greatest fucking cookies, and my grandfather has the sweetest wheels. However, when it comes to sharing time in smoking circles, you either must make something up, or keep your mouth shut.
"Heads up, Healy!" Daniel warns me, directly after the dodgeball someone projected has already hit me square in the back of the head.
"Gee, thanks." I holler back, rubbing the back of my head. He's always late with sounding the alarm. The gym teacher, Coach Williams, coach for the girls' softball team, runs over to me and asks if I need to visit the clinic. Since she's a mother of three, I give her some slack for being concerned, and I kindly tell her I'll survive.
Locker room talk is always the same.
"Hey, Michelle, my god! Did you hear who Mickey's taking to prom? Brandon!"
"No way! I am so tweeting this! Haley's going to freak!"
Funny thing is, I don't know who any of these people are, or who they're talking about, but I'm sure the mouse and Brandon are going to have a fantastic time while I'm home on prom night, most likely baking with my grandmother, or watching some form of a sports game on the television with Grandpa. George Daniel, my best friend since I was six years old, talks about a hot girl he saw today in his lunch period. She's blonde, he says, definitely my type, according to him. I bet she's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed too. Though I'm not listening as he goes from blonde to brunette, from blue eyes to brown, I pretend to show interest by nodding, when I'm really thinking about being eighteen tomorrow.
"You are coming, right?" I ask him, ignoring the question, referring to our big plan to celebrate my being a legal adult. "I'm not sure, dude." He says, throwing his bag over his shoulder. Daniel turned eighteen a week ago, coincidentally. "Mums freaky overprotective lately, with my sister coming soon. Probably just hormones and shit."
