Chapter Three: Introducing Me
After I’ve put Peter to bed I walk into the laundry room and look for my clothes. It was raining when we got home so Brady and I are drenched because we took off our hoodies and wrapped Peter in them. I dig through the dryer looking for a pair of my black sweatpants, and a pair of basketball shorts for Brady. Once a good five minutes of searching has passed I hear Brady come up stairs. At this point I’m frustrated with myself because I know I did the laundry yesterday before I started watching my movies. Yet, now they’re all nowhere to be found. Brady laughs behind me.
“What’s so funny?” I ask without turning my attention away from the inside of the dryer.
“Carson. Calm down, and look at me.” I turn around to see him standing there in a pair of green basketball shorts and a white cut off shirt. I sigh.
“I took care of your clothes while you were asleep. Your sweatpants are on your bed. Breathe.”
Sometimes I hate how much he helps me.
~
After I’ve changed into some dry clothes I clean up my room while Brady orders us Chinese food. We like to have Chinese on Saturday nights while we talk about our weeks some more. Brady usually spends the night, and before you guys start “oohing and aaahing” nothing happens. Things that most couples do like cuddle, hold hands, kiss eachother’s forehead, etc. we do all the time, but none of it has any meaning. It’s just us.
Usually I draw while Brady orders the food, and it doesn’t take me very long to clean, so I grab my sketchbook and a pen and start drawing. Yes, I draw in pen. No, I don’t worry about making “mistakes”. There are no mistakes in art, no matter how cliché that is. I open the book to the most recent drawing. I’ve been working on a picture for a while. It’s a picture where the page is separated in half horizontally. The upper half of the picture is how someone completely oblivious to everything would see the world. Nice. Pretty. Pure.
The bottom half of the picture shows how it really is. Dark. Evil. Full of monsters. It’s coming together quite nicely if you ask me. I like drawing things like this. I have this poster above my desk, it says "Art is our only salvation from the horror of existence." and I couldn't agree more. I continue working on my drawing, shading in the flowers on the upper half, and the demons on the bottom. Brady walks in the room just as I’m about to use color on my picture.
“Still working on that Cars?” he calls me Cars a lot. But, not “cars” like the vehicle. “Cars” like Carson.
“Yeah, I guess. It occupies my time. Do you like it?” I ask, even though he’s going to say yes whether he likes it or not; simply because I did it.
“Of course I do.” See? Told you.
Brady sits on the bed next to me and asks me how I’ve been doing. I say I’ve been alright but he knows it’s not true.
“What’s going on hun?” I knew he wasn’t going to let me lie to him about how I’m doing.
“Mom and Dad left on a “business trip” five weeks ago and aren’t back yet. No phone calls, no texts, no emails, nothing. I don’t think they’re coming back.” I sigh.
Before Brady gets the chance to ask me why I think that, I tell him.
“You know just as well as I that they’re disappointed in me. I’m not the daughter they wanted. I don’t want to be a lawyer, or a doctor. I want to listen to emotional music, I want to draw. That's all I know, I don't know what I want to do, and they don't like that. I’m just an ignorant, selfish seventeen year old. They don’t want us. They don’t want the result of a broken condom. They never cared enough to do anything other than put a roof over mine and Peter’s head. I get all the food, I pay for everything. They don’t want us, Brady. They make it crystal clear that they don't care. They’re not coming back.”
To anybody else, I would never just blurt out my feelings like that.
I feel a tear roll down my cheek. I don’t know why I’m crying, I’ve known this for a while. I know I’ll never be good enough for them. It just sucks to admit. Brady pulls me into a hug. He doesn’t let go for a long, long time. We just sit there, in each others arms.
“You are good enough Carson, don’t you ever forget that.” I feel something wet fall on my arm and I look up to see Brady crying. I shouldn’t have said anything.
Brady doesn’t have parents. When he was twelve both of his parents left him. His mom was a drug addict, and his dad was an alcoholic. They abused him, both verbally and physically. They always told him he was worthless, which very quickly turned into something he thought about himself too. I always feel so bad for complaining about my parents to him, and I always apologize after talking about them.
“I’m sorry Brady, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
He looks at me, “Cars, don’t ever apologize for venting to me. I’m not crying because of my parents, and I know that's what you're thinking. I’m crying because you’re hurt, you being hurt is not something i fancy. It sucks to be left. To be thrown away by your parents. But, don’t ever get the notion that you’re not good enough simply because of them. It’s their loss. Not yours.”
~
The doorbell rings and we race up the stairs to answer the door. You see, we play this game. Whoever answers the door, pays for the food. As soon as the bell rings, I jump off my bed and sprint up the stairs Brady rushing behind me. Brady likes to put up obstacles while he’s ordering the food that way when it gets here I somehow get stuck somewhere in the house, so he beats me to the door.
But I’ve memorized most of them. He puts a baby gate at the top of the stairs. Which I’ve learned to jump over. In the hallway he scatters a bunch over toilet paper packages, hoping that I trip on them. I usually just jump across them, but today in between every package of toilet paper is a bunch of goldfish. There are goldfish scattered all over my floor.
I stop in front of them.
“You wouldn’t want to make a mess, now would you?” Brady asks. He smirks at me knowing I don’t want to.
“Good job smart ass, now how do you expect to get through?”
“I have no problem making the mess, I’ll clean it up.” He replies as he runs ahead of me stepping on ever goldfish in his way. At this point there’s already a mess so I run through the hallway hoping he hasn’t made it to the door yet.
But he has. James, the delivery guy, looks at me and says,
“He getcha again?” I laugh. “This time.” I reply.
While Brady pays for the food I dart back down stairs and take out money from my purse, slipping it into Brady’s wallet which he left on my bed. He only ever takes out and brings up money to pay. So, when he beats me he never really wins.
~
“Do you want to watch a movie?” Brady asks me.
Of course I say yes, and I take our Chinese takeout containers and set them on my desk while he starts the movie. We’ll probably watch The Breakfast Club. We usually watch this movie, because we kind of relate it to us. Brady's the criminal, and I'm the princess. He doesn’t know that every time we watch it I’ve already watched it the night before. He doesn’t know because after I finish watching it I put it on my DVD player so it looks like it’s been there since the last time we watched it together. I don’t really mind watching it again. He hits play and we lay down on my bed. After a while my eyes began to droop with exhaustion. I can barely keep my eyes open now. I take one last look at the TV and see the students getting high in the library, and then I fall asleep.
