Aces [#NANOWRIMO2017]

Ace Is Not the Next Shawn Mendes (But Might Be On Par With Justin Bieber)

A/N Everything about this chapter is terrible??? I got major writer's block during this part and it took me two days to finish so please brace yourself for an awful chapter and also more awful chapters to come sorry thanks

Tᴜᴇsᴅᴀʏ, Fᴇʙʀᴜᴀʀʏ 6
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I didn't know how to drive. I relied on my bike to get me everywhere.

And if my bike broke somehow just before something really important? I'd be in big, big trouble.

Why was I telling you this? No real reason. Just a thought.

On a completely unrelated note, are you familiar with the term "foreshadowing"? I know that I once knew the definition, but I can't remember it anymore.

But all of this is beside the point; I'm just thinking out loud.

I still had no idea how to play the guitar, but I'd been doing some brainstorming last night. Let me walk you through my thought process (if you can keep up; there's some pretty complicated stuff in here so brace yourself):

Matt and Jenna are dating.

Matt won over Jenna by writing a song for her and performing it with the guitar.

I have a guitar.

There's no step four, it's just the three steps.

How hard could writing a song be, really?

Very hard.

Very, very hard.

I popped by at school today around halfway through the period before lunch to ask Matt if he could lend me a copy of the song that he'd written so I could use it for inspiration, but it was no help at all. All of it was either trash, disgusting flirty trash, or inside-joke trash. Plus, Matt's handwriting is awful and I couldn't read any of it.

So I tried starting from scratch instead. I could barely get past the first verse, and just looking at it made me want to throw up. It's so mushy and awful and cheesy and I just know that Sera isn't going to fall for it. Your eyes are like two liquid moons / when I see you I just swoon.

Where the heck did I pull something like that from?

My second try wasn't much better, either. You make me spread my wings and soar / And when you walk away / You leave me wanting more / It's safe for me to say.

I mean, nice rhymes. I gotta admit that the rhyming was pretty dang tight in that second one. But besides that? Bleh. I don't think I need to explain why I gave up.

Point is, the whole writing-a-song thing was a dumb idea and it was never going to work. I was considering maybe turning to writing romantic letters, but based on the lyrics I'd written, it was probably a better idea to stay away from anything involving writing.

Just chatting with Seraphine, though, seemed to be working. I had a quick moment with her at the very beginning of lunch today; it had been really short, but she'd walked off wearing a genuine smile. As small as that may seem, it was a success in my book. Besides, I still had twenty-two days. No sweat.

Still, so far my advances had been purely friendly, to help her feel comfortable around me. I had one foot loosely in the friendzone. I decided to start flirting with her on Wednesday. Not too much, mind you -- I didn't want to scare Sera away, that would be a disaster -- but enough to open the door that I'd need to advance our relationship from "just friends" to something more.

Anyway, someone please tell Matt that he can't rhyme "female" with "mayonnaise". Like, what the heck, dude? They're not even close.

My father was home.

Yaaaaayyyyy.

It was a rare treat to have my father actually be home before ten. And by treat, I mean "awful idiotic stupid dumb thing that is so disgusting and terrible that it makes me want to stab someone to death".

First thing he did when he got home was crash on the couch in front of the TV and fall asleep. I knew this because I could hear his snores through my closed bedroom door, and ever since Hazel left, my dad only ever slept in four places: the aforementioned couch, the middle of the stairs, the floor next to the dining table, or -- this only ever happened once but there is no way that I'll ever forget it -- on top of the roof. Yep. He somehow managed to get so drunk that he magicked himself onto the rooftop without falling and breaking his neck. Don't ask me how he did it. No one knows.

"Ace!" bellowed my dad's voice about three hours later.

I ignored him. I was upstairs and he was probably too wasted to remember how to climb stairs, so if I had to bet, I'd say that I was safe from him as long as I didn't go downstairs.

Glad I didn't bet. He came barreling into my bedroom about thirty seconds later.

Jerk. Not that he'd ever knocked before coming in, even before he became an alcohol-guzzling machine. "There should never be a reason for you to hide what you're doing from your family, so privacy doesn't matter in this house," he said.

He smelled like greasy fries and booze. Hardly surprising, but still a crime for my nostrils. His "bad-bar-smell" stank up the whole room. I pinched my nose. "What do you want?"

"I c-c-called you. Why din't you ansswer me?"

I said nothing, but my father still stared stupidly, expecting an answer. When no answer came, anger registered on his face and he took a step towards me. "Ace, why din't you ansswer me?" he asked again.

"Why didn't you answer me?" I shot back. "I asked you first."

Even though an immature argument like that would never work on anyone in their right mind, my dad was definitely not in his right mind and somehow my twisted logic got through to him. He stood there gaping like a fish for a bit and eventually gave up. "I came up here t' tell ya zat yer backpack's still on the floor downstairs and I was gonna go get a sanwich from the fridge but I tripped over it an-an-an hurt my foot. Go pick it up."

"Nah, don't think I will," I told him. "Get out of my room, dad."

"Pick it up," he said again, frowning. "Pick it up, Ace."

I grabbed a sneaker from the floor and threw it at my dad. He toppled over onto the floor, somehow already snoring by the time he hit the ground.

Hey, I had no other ideas. And it worked, didn't it? I rolled his large, smelly body out of the room and closed the door. Then I sat down and felt an inexplicable urge to cry.

I hated my dad.

As for my mom? I didn't know why she couldn't control him. She was his wife. She should've be able to stop him from getting so bashed -- for my sake. It was so selfish of her not to think of her children; to let him go off and booze up everyday.

Honestly, though, my mom was so weak. All my dad had to do was, like, breathe on her and she'd do whatever he asked. She said once that it was because she loved him, and deep down, she knew that he still loved her. I told her that if that was what love looked like, I wanted no part of it.

Come to think of it, I hated my mom too. I hated both of them.

And hey, while I was at it... I hated Matt and Jenna, because they said they were in love and in my experience, love does nothing but hurt. I hated Rafael and Bradley and Scott, because they were all morons and didn't deserve me. I hated Seraphine's best friend Lynne, because she was getting in the way of two hundred and fifty dollars. Most of all, I hated my life, because I deserved better than this.

But I didn't hate Hazel. That's for sure.

And for some reason... I didn't hate Seraphine, either.