+|Four|-

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+|Joey|-

"So if he doesn't talk to your mom, and acts like an ass to you, what happens when he comes home?" I guess my dad was a curious topic in my new friend's mind.

"Usually finds leftovers and devours them, then takes a shower, and goes to sleep."

"Where?"

"What do you mean where?"

"Does he still sleep in the same bed as your mom?"

"Pretty sure. He'd be farthest from her, though," I responded.

He kept the straw of his drink close to his mouth, "That's shitty."

Yes, yes it was. The fact that my mom would cry her eyes out to me sometimes feeling like her husband had no love left to show her and provide for her. The salty drops would leave her clothes with small tear stains. They'd dry later and never be noticeable again. Maybe if they never dried, my dad would get his head out of his ass and realize how my mom was feeling on the inside. He gave her the littlest bit of affection; maybe so much as a kiss on the forehead on his way out the door. Every morning, I'd see that same glum look my mom would give him when he'd kiss her forehead with his dry chapped lips. She'd hold her off white coffee mug with a clenched fist around the handle, knuckles wanting to form white from the screams roaring up inside her. I'd sit there and witness the same thing. Same thing, same morning, same routine. Yeah, a different date in time, but the exact replica of the scene right as the sun was either up or about to come up. It's got to be quite irritating and painful for her. There's one parent that actually takes care of me, and one that yells at me unnecessarily.

"Enough about my parents, how's your mom doing?" I wondered.

"Tired, stressed, just like I am, but in a different way I guess," Ryder tossed out his food box after the last big bite of chicken and fried rice. An aluminum garbage can happened to be sitting on the corner of a path intersection by the lake. Lots of people would come down here. I would notice joggers getting in their morning jogs on my way to school when mom used to drive me. When the bus would pass by the lake, the joggers hadn't quite worked up a sweat, it formed later, that's just how I assumed it to be. Ryder's been taking me to school on his motorcycle for the last few months. I never ask. It all started one morning when he told me to send him my house address and be ready right after. After that, it became a regular thing of ours. Us, together, a pair of humans finding ways to get to the location of where their education purposes were fulfilled somewhat positively. School didn't ever really teach me much. Honestly I wish I could just go off to college already.

"Siblings?"

"Thorns in my goddamn ass," Ryder replied kicking a small rock in frustration. He really did have so much to deal with, so much was always overwhelming; a greater deal than some people our age. His mom was trying to balance her work life and her home life all at the same time with the only source of help coming from her oldest son. She was not Mrs. Blakeman because of the divorce, so Ms. Grendel clearly wasn't having the time of her life as an independent mother. The following Monday developed quite the curve. I was standing in the library by a bookshelf of psychology page-turners. Mom's career occasionally gave me interest in stuffing my eyes into a book of that nature. I stopped searching through the long rows to look up a specific book title. A group of male voices approached me, causing me to glance up from my phone.

"Hey."

"Can we go to your place instead of mine today? Mom's interviewing someone to hopefully watch her fucking kids," Ryder had been fed up with watching his siblings for the longest time; it was nice to hear his mom was trying to get some tense stress off his back.

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