The Good And The Bad

+|One|-

+|Joey|-

The first page of this one thick chapter book I read back in ninth grade told me love was nothing but an overworked myth. The character was struggling to find the perfect person, but is there really a perfect person for everyone? I used to not believe that but then I crossed paths with a boy who had the complete opposite attitude and personality I did. It was a total accident. He wasn't in my friend group in or out of school, just someone different than me, very different. Nobody could've guessed that behind closed doors, we were crazy about each other. It just wasn't one of those situations where it's easy to tell if two people are in love or are a couple; turns out we were both of those. How it happened knocked my brain around in all directions. This boy was all I thought about, all I ever had on my mind. The connection we developed was past the meaning of 'strong', it was intense, confusing at first. Ryder Blakeman was not my reflection in the mirror. Ryder Blakeman was not my best friend, let alone my friend, and he certainly wasn't someone I would normally talk to. I just never thought of him being into me. I'd see him around school, but not once did we ever talk, all up until this one day. It was just like any other school day when it all started; walking in with my backpack straps over each one of my shoulders, my white earbuds tucked in, dressed in a casual outfit, and passing by most of the students who I didn't know the names of. I noticed my math teacher, Mrs. Berkley, heading in my direction. Quickly, she spun back around and tapped me on the shoulder.

I snatched out both earbuds, "Hi, Mrs. Berkley."

"Hi Joey, I've been meaning to touch base with you about something. Would you come along to my classroom for a second?" Mrs. Berkley explained.

"Sure," I followed her down the hall, not bothering to insert my earbuds back into my ears; the familiar room number became visible soon enough.

"Alright, I have a student in my last period class, Ryder Blakeman. He's kind of a troubled student, and I can't get him to get his grade up for my class. Since you're a good student, I was hoping you wouldn't mind tutoring him once or twice a week, as long as it's not too much trouble," Her patience was low with this kid; I could easily tell.

I never did anything important after school; no sports, no clubs, nothing occupied my free time right after the familiar sound of the dismissal bell rang into every hall of Lawshore High School. That name, Ryder Blakeman, it was somewhat familiar to me. I think I'd heard it before. Maybe I'd recognize him if I saw his face.

"Yeah, I should be able to do it. Where would you want me to tutor him?"

"The library is a good spot. It's open till five PM, you could do it there," Mrs. Berkley told me.

"I'll talk to my parents about it, sure they won't mind," My parents, Tom and Marissa, you could say they're not exactly on board with the same type of parenting.

Mom has always been the one to cut me a little slack, let me have more than one friend over to the house, and will usually let me stay lit a bit past curfew; plus, she's always been the one to listen to my thoughts as well. There's pretty much only one thing to sum up my dad, he's a cop. Not just a normal cop, he takes his job extremely serious as a policeman. If I go to a party at someone's house who my dad doesn't know, he'll freak out and will immediately want to know where the house or apartment is located. The fact that he's still like this really shocks me. Anyone my age who lives in Lawshore knows he's really not fond of teenagers, at all. He's always there when a teenager is committing a crime. Not just teenagers adults too he knows just how to identify the truth and get inside people's minds. He has solved many cases and helped out with crimes more than any other officer in the town of Lawshore , I'll give him credit even though I really can't stand him, his work is impressive; I've never seen anyone work as hard as he does. Has he caught me smoking weed? Yes, twice. Has he caught me stealing alcohol from the kitchen? Yes once. Has he caught me sneaking out? Absolutely, I can't even count how many times. Sometimes late at night I won't even make it to the bottom of the staircase, he'll tell me to get back in my room before he grounds me for a few days and take my phone away for the same amount of time. My dad is just too damn much. He's the main cause of my stress and anxiety. When he moved back with me and my mom right after I turned thirteen he got much more strict than the had been. He'd been gone since I was seven, and I'll say this is the absolute truth, it was the best six years of my life. Mom and I grew closer and developed a pretty good bond. Then my dad barged his way back in and said he wasn't leaving again. My mom has tried to leave and take me with her, but my dad always gets in the way of that happening because she lets him. I wish she wouldn't; I want him gone out of our lives. I love my mom, I really do, but she's a pushover, a doormat. She just lets my father walk all over her like she has no interest to do something about it. Home is not always the place I want to be. There's good days, but more bad than good. There's never a rare day where Marissa and Thomas Lagner don't have at least one argument. It can be over stupid stuff or really important stuff. Sometimes, I wonder why they're still married. They'd be much better off separated and divorced. Since I didn't have anything to do after school, I agreed to help tutor one of Mrs. Berkley's students. I got home and asked my mom how she felt about it.

"Sounds like you'd be doing this boy a favor," Mom said after I explained the situation with Mrs. Berkley and Ryder.

"Probably. Mrs. Berkley said she can't get him to do well in her class," I mentioned to her.

"It's fine with me, you'll have to run it by your father, though," Of course; I already saw that one coming way before she got the first word out.

"He'll be out at the station, so why does it matter?"

"You know he'll want to know where you are," Mom reminded me.

"I'll tell him what's going on when I get home tomorrow," I told her.

Mom started typing something up on her computer, for work I'm guessing, "He'll be home around seven or seven-thirty. He's got a lot of work to do, so he won't be here in time for dinner."

Dad barely ever made it home in time for dinner, he still barely does. It'd be just the two of us, my mom and I. She'd tell me about her day working from home. Mom is an online counselor; she video chats with people who need help or just need someone to talk to about their problems. I've heard about several of the people she's talked with in the past. Dad is never really around to have a meaningful conversation with Mom, so I'm the one who she talks to. Basically, I'm her counselor. When there's a problem, she calls me. When there's something she needs at the store, I go get it. What my dad usually says is that my mom can talk to me about her problems and she can go go out and get whatever she needs at the store herself; he says he isn't her personal assistant. This is another example of why I think they should get divorced. I'm not even going to bother lying, Thomas Lagner is a prick. In my eyes, he hasn't done his job very well as a dad and as a husband in the last several years, and it makes me sick. When he was around, my mood would go through a negative phase and then returned to pretty much positive when he wouldn't be around. I'd be able to try draining his very loud words out of my ears. Almost constantly, I got lectured on anything my father disagreed with me doing or seeing. The arguments were not usually small; they were always turned into big problems and Dad would insist that it got solved as soon as possible, unless he had to head off to the station, then the argument or lecture would be put on hold until further notice.

"Doesn't it bother you that he's never here?" I asked my mom; I try to ask her that on a regular basis to see if she'll admit the truth, try and get her to crack.

"He's a busy man, not much I can do or you can do to change that," Mom moved herself around in the computer chair to face me.

"You don't miss him?"

Mom crossed her arms, "Of course I do."

"He should be paying more attention to-" I was interrupted by a video call from one of Mom's clients.

"Gotta take this, honey," Mom spun around clockwise and hit accept on the video call.

I'm not even remotely surprised by the interruption. Something always comes up, something always keeps her from admitting the truth about dad. Sure, she would talk about him to me, but some words, some confessions, were always missing. It bugged me big time. Unfortunately, I really didn't have the kind of control over the situation to change the way things would turn out. If I did have that type of power, I would change several things, like how my dad wrecked the one good thing going on in my life. Tutoring Ryder Blakeman wasn't about to be any easy task for me. I knew it from the second I met eyes with him on that first day in the library.