Profanity

prologue - clair de lune

Lee attempted to drown out his excruciating headache with another shot of tequila.

It wasn't working.

To be honest not much was working, junior year had just started, and he was recently fired from his job at Kelly's Diner for purloining the tip jar home with him after closing. Not like he lacked the money, but his followers would go crazy when they see the whole damn container in his Instagram story. And they did;

He gained a couple of thousand followers from it.

Lee wasn't a gambler by any means, but he bet this year would end up being his worst. His mom was planning on moving to New York, leaving Lee and his younger sister, Jenna, alone in LA with their dad. Which, isn't exactly a bad thing. Thomas, Blake's dad, wasn't a bad person per se, but he had a very old-fashioned soul, which doesn't mix well when you're living in Hollywood. Blake considered him and his sister to be locals, while his father was more like a tourist. Which is crazy, considering he's lived there all his life.

They had talked about this a couple of nights ago when Lee had lied and said that he had quit Kelly's.

"This is nothing like when I was a kid." His father had said.

"What do you mean, Dad?" Lee had sighed, putting down his phone and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Your world is changing, maybe for the better, but refuse to change with it." His dad would mumble, shaking his head and taking a substantial drag of his cigar firmly planted in one hand. When they were younger, he and Jenna would joke that his cigar was almost as old fashioned as he was.

"That's just fine dad; we don't need you to change." Jenna would call out in a dull tone from the kitchen, probably attempting to make another pasty. If Lee was a foodie, he was positive that he would be on the late-night show, "Weightloss."

His sister almost flunked out of freshman year; she had utterly stopped studying and would block out any stress that could prevent her from achieving her daydream. He honestly thought that she must've been trapped in some psychological mind game of trying to one-up mom.

Three years ago, one rainy, humid morning the new family of three had awoken to most of their possessions gone. Thomas had initially panicked, taking great gasps from his inhaler and then replacing the oxygen with cigarette smoke. They then had realized mom had left in the night. That was the only time Lee had ever seen dad cry. His sister, however, had sold her entire skateboard collection and took to stocking the kitchen with the best cooking supplies, even more, expensive than moms. Lee had watched Jenna's sweet tooth, and his dad's depression grows from the sidelines; ignoring everything as the world around their broken family photo continued. My sister continued eating her worries, and my dad just stopped moving altogether.

Blake finished reminiscing, taking another shot of tequila before slamming the glass against his wooden table. He looked around at his perfectly decorated house and laughed. It seemed so put together, so perfectly placed. If anyone were to come too close, they'd see how disastrous their home was compared to the rest of the neighborhood.

He picked up another used cigarette from the ash colored carpet with a smile.

He would hold this burning house together until he chokes on the smoke and drops dead; giving into the sparks filling lungs and the pounding headache in his brain.

Maybe then, will he finally have the chance to be at peace.