Seeking Smiles//Slow Updates

ten

"Where were you?" The moment I slide into my seat for first period, I'm confronted by the cross-faced Tyler.

"None of your business." I respond without looking at him. Don't let him get to you.

"Did something happen?" He asks.

Biting my lip, I face the whiteboard on the wall of the front of the classroom with a "no" escaping my lips.

"I don't believe that." Tyler goes on.

"Well, you better start believing what I tell you because it isn't going to get much detailed." I snap, turning in my desk to face him.

His brown hair is disheveled and his bangs hang long down the side and front of his face in whisps. His pink lips are pursed together in a thin line and his black eyes are squinted at me with a look of disappointment. I don't care how he feels about me or any response I give him. I don't care.

The classroom and Tyler fade away.

   
Looking up from my puzzle that forms a large lion with a brilliant mane, I see my parents doing their regular arguing routine.
   
My mother's long hair is in her face with the motions she makes when she's yelling. Her once pale skin is darkened to the color of a ripened tomato and her lips curl back over her teeth. Her nose is scrunched up with anger that forms something awful in her green eyes when she looks at my father.
   
"I can't do this, Jason. Not anymore." She says, her glare burning a hole straight through her husband's head. "Once it endangers our children, then it has to stop. I tried to put up with it for so long and to let you live doing what you wanted to do without my interference. I thought that was best for you. I thought that's what built healthy relationships, but this one has become so ill that it can barely sustain itself anymore."
   
Across from her, my father stands, his balding head wrinkled and as maroon as his face. Veins pop out of his forehead and spit flies out of his mouth when he speaks. He is nothing close to beautiful when his eyes are filled with hate.
   
"This is my house." My father shouts. "I'm the one who pays for it with my money while you waste it all on that kid."
   
"That kid is our son, Jason! Your son." My mother tries to defend herself and Malaki as she always has.
   
"Malaki is no son of mine!" My father bellows and the words strike pain in my young heart. "Not with his damn retardedness and his little delusions! No son of mine would ever be something like that thing."
   
"You must be joking!" My mother waves her hands in the air with exasperation. "I can't believe you'd say such a thing about your own creation. How dare you. How dare you come back home after hours of drinking and smoking and 'playing around' with prostitutes and blame everything on your child? I don't pay for the house because I'm busy paying for his medicine so he can live up to your unreachable expectations! Would you rather him die? Because without his medication, that's exactly what will happen."
   
"I don't care!" My father yells right in her face that holds inches away from his own. "If he dies, so be it! We'd all be better off without his existence anyways! I don't care about him and I don't care about any of these other animals we have in our house. The only reason we have them is because I cared of you. And you've ruined that care."
   
"I'm done." My mother's voice calms down to low and shaky. "I'm fucking done." She snarls, raising a hand up in the air to hit my father.
   
But his reflexes work faster, his grabs my mother's wrist in his large hand and breaks it. When she tries to defend herself, she doesn't even have time to scream before she's lying in a crumpled pile on the floor, her neck twisted to the side.
   
I don't know what to think. I just sit there, a puzzle piece in hand while I watch my father's mouth move as he strings out endless curses, but I don't hear him. All I hear is a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I want to scream. I want to cry. But I do neither of the things. All I can do is sit there, paralyzed. My mother laying in a heap on the tiled floor feet before me. And I know without having to ask, without having to think much at all, that she's gone.
   
My father's figure stomps toward me and I finally let out an ear-splitting shriek.

"I can't believe you." Tyler's head appears once more. "How long can you ignore me for when you're looking straight at me? And making these weird faces. What even goes on in that brain of yours?" Tyler's eyebrow quirks.

"Leave me alone." I whisper harshly and turn back to face the front of the classroom.

"Why don't you ever tell me where you are or what's going on?" Tyler complains. "I sat in the park for three hours and then realized that you weren't late, but just not showing up at all. Then yesterday, you didn't even show up to school. I planned on asking you then, but when all you do is shut me and the rest of the world out, no one can do much of anything to help."

"Do you know what would help me?" I say quietly.

"What?" Tyler leans in intently, almost in a way that he really cares what my answer will be.

"If you'll just leave me be!" I shout in his face before shoving earphones in my ears and turning on some heavy metal to block out everything else. I had to have a damn flashback in the midst of talking to Tyler. What are the odds and why is my luck so bad?

I don't care if I hurt him. I don't care anything about him. Just like my father, I've gone to the point where I really don't care. But unlike him, the person I'm getting away from is just a classmate, just a stranger, no one I should care about in the first place.

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Slamming my locker door shut, I'm greeted by Tyler.

"Get the hell away from me, Olivarner." I tell him, pushing past him to get to the cafeteria.

"Logan, we need a day after school or something to work on that song project for drama. It's a big part of our grade and we—"

"Oh my god, just screw the project! No one gives a damn anyways!" My eyes widen with annoyance as I try to shake him off of me.

"I give a," Tyler stutters over the curse word. "You know what."

"You can't even say damn, Olivarner." I shake my head and keep walking.

"Stop calling me Olivarner, my name is Tyler." He corrects me, a slight tinge of pain in his voice.

"Your last name is still Olivarner. And I'll call you what I want. Thanks." I grit my teeth, picking up my pace as I near the cafeteria where I can just grab my lunch and go sit outside alone.

Tyler huffs with frustration. "You're mean." He calls me.

I laugh with amusement. "Oh my god, thank you!" I squeal in a high pitched voice. "It's not like no one has told me that before. Only they've used stronger language than your PG vocabulary." I roll my eyes.

"Fine, whatever." Tyler says. "I'm not giving up though."

"It would suit us all better if you did just give up. That's the practical thing to do and you're choosing to do the impossible, Olivarner." I raise my hands in sarcastic apology.

Tyler stops following me and stands still in the middle of the hallway where people scowl at him as they move past him blocking their path.
Shaking his head at me, I pay no attention and instead trek to the cafeteria.

I just have to get him to give up.

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Rest In Peace, Otto boys...

and Mark Alan Edwards, fuck you.

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