Atelophobia (Kellic)

9

My mom had been sleeping on the couch for a few years now. It started when she got home one day, utterly wasted, and not able to get to her room anymore. It happened again the next day, and the day after it and after a few weeks I told Kaily to take mom's old room. Our mother didn't say anything about it. She was only home to sleep anyway, so a whole room to herself would be a waste. She simply continued to crash on the couch most of the times, sometimes she didn't come home at all. And after a few years Kaily insisted that she would share a room with Nick, so that I could at least have something to myself. I didn't want her to have to share a room with her younger brother but she didn't take no for an answer.

So I stayed in the smaller room, Kaily and Nick went into the former bedroom of our parents and our mom just crashed on the couch as if she was nothing more than a family friend who got in trouble and needed somewhere to stay for a few nights.

I should've been used to it by now. I should've accepted the fact that I barely knew my mom, that I barely got to see her or talk to her. But as I saw her on the couch the next morning it was as if I got paralyzed. I just stood there, looking at her closely.

She looked so fragile. She got extremely skinny over the last years, her face was sunken in, her collarbones stood out, her fingers were long and slender with broken nails. She aged extremely fast as well. Even though she was only in her mid-thirty's, you could already see some white strands in her by now thin, black hair and wrinkles around her eyes, mouth and on her forehead.

It hurt me to see her this way. I couldn't help it, I loved her. The memory of how she used to be a long time ago still lingered in the back of my head and made it even worse. But she changed, and there was nothing I could do about it. All the times I had to clean up her vomit, check if she was still breathing in the morning after a rough night, the countless amount of times I heard her sobbing in the middle of the night, all the terrors that happened to her. It changed everything. And I absolutely hated her for it.

It wasn't her fault. I knew it wasn't her fault. But I couldn't help but to be torn between the feeling of loathing and pitying her.

I turned away from her with a sigh. There was no use to breaking my head over things I had no control over.

Justin greeted me with half-hearted smile at the school entrance. He had been leaning against the wall, apparently waiting for me. I returned the smile and walked towards him.

"Wow, you look like shit." Justin said, his smile got replaced by a frown. I shook my head and laughed dryly. "Geez, thanks man." We walked into the school and I started to tense up due to the loud volume of the hallway.

"Oh, come on. Don't be like that." He bumped his elbow into my side slightly and I did the same to him. "Care to tell me what you've been up to last night?"

I rubbed my hands over my face, almost running into another kid, and let out a long exasperated sigh. "Could we talk about this another time? It's a long story."

Justin sighed as well and even rolled his eyes at me. "Fine, how about you tell me later at lunch?" He added a big, overfriendly smile at the end, causing me to laugh lightly.

"You're something else, Hills."

"I know. It's great, isn't it?"

I sat down at the back of my Biology classroom, letting my backpack carelessly fall down next to me. It was one of the few classes I actually looked forward to and I was glad to be able to focus on something else than my personal life, at least for a while. I took out my sketchbook and was about to start adding some details to me newest piece as I felt a presence next to me. I took a glance to the side and let my head fall forward in defeat. What kind of sick joke was this?