Unwritten

Danny

I wake up slowly, to my bed shaking at 5:30 in the morning. No one is presently in my room to shake my bed but I guess I had been crying while I was asleep-obvious by the wet pillow. Maybe that was it.

I trudge to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. I go back to my room and resist the urge to climb back into bed. I acquire coffee from the kitchen and put into practice, my daily ritual. I hear my mom's alarm go off. "U need to wake up your dad." She texts me a minute later. She tells me she has a spa day and needs my car. She didn't tell me she'd be taking my car today so she could go to some dumb spa for a "day of vacation". It pisses me off that she is spending money on something that she does every day at home. All she's going to do is go to sleep in a really uncomfortable room. The only difference from a spa day and a normal day is that today, she is paying for it. I think about confronting her but decide against it.

I need to wake up my dad to take me to school or I'm going to be late. I run upstairs. "Dad." I say once. I shake him and say "Dad" again. He rolls over and groans like a mad teenager. "Dad you need to take me to school." He groans again.

"Why?" He asks.

"Mom needs my car today so I need you to take me." I explain to him. He probably doesn't care but I need to get to school so it's worth a try. "Dad." No reply. He fell back asleep.

"I tried." I text my mom. I hope she'd come in and wake him up because he listens to her sometimes. I keep trying to wake up Dad for about five minutes.

My mom texts me back. "Lily, you need to wake him up!" Does she even know how hard it is to wake up my dad when you need him to do something and not to his convenience?

"Dad. Wake up. You need to take me to school." I tell him again shaking him. He groans and rolls over again. "God, Dad. Wake up!" I yell really loudly. He sits up and looks at me like I am a tiger about to eat him. "School. Now." I told him. I feel like I am the parent and I am trying to wake up the teenager.

"You can walk." He lays back down and goes back to sleep.

"Are you fucking kidding me? Four miles? I have to be at school in thirty minutes." I run down the steps to get my coffee. Why are my parents such fucking dead-beats? I walk out the front door. At this point, if Mason was still going to high school with me, I would ask him for a ride. He's already at work though and probably has been for the past few hours. I get motivated to walk to school.

It takes me about an hour to get to school. I am late for zero period. I walk into class and take my seat. Mr.Derekson is talking about tobacco and drugs and his experience with them. He tells us, when he was eight, a cousin dared him to smoke a cigarette. "When someone triple dog dares you to do something... and you're eight years old, you do it. I took a big breath and started having a huge coughing fit." I sit back and cover up with Mason's letterman jacket to get comfortable. "I looked up after the coughing fit and all my buddies were gone. I turned around and guess who was standing there. My dad was behind me. You know what he did?" The class goes silent, on the edge of their seats. "He stuck me in the bathroom and-".

"He made you smoke a whole pack didn't he?" I ask my health teacher. He nods. "My grandparents did that to my parents when they found out my parents stole packs."

"Yeah the only thing that saved me from it was my mom. I was on my fourth cigarette and I had already puked. My mom started calling for all the kids and couldn't find me. She stood outside and asked my dad if he knew where I was and he said 'I got him. I'll take care of it.' Now, my mom is four foot ten inches and my dad is six foot one inch. My mom yelled at my dad and pushed him out of the way. She pulled me out of the bathroom while my dad tried to explain. I was sick for the next three days and I never smoked again." He continues the story but I zone out and drink my coffee. I've heard about a million of these stories so I know how it goes.