buzzcut season

15.

I'm drunk.

Like always.

Well actually I'm not really. I've only had one drink.

Mal and I are in the alleyway next to our apartment arguing.

Lately she's been nagging me a lot for drinking. Lately I've been drinking a lot more. Lately I've been having a lot of my gloomy days.

I always had some bad days but I've been having too many.

The feeling of not wanting to get out of bed.

Not wanting to die but rather wishing I'd never existed.

With no motivation for anything in life comes with boredom and depression.

Mal doesn't understand this.

She just thinks my pills will fix my behavior so she basically force feeds me them by following me around and nagging me about them. Some days she counts the pills to make sure I take them. I honestly can't blame her for being ignorant and just trying to help but a lot of sadness just turns to anger that I release on her.

"It's unbelievable. Sometimes I wonder if Kate is right," Mal says angrily. I lean against the wall with nothing in my hands because she took my bottle.

"That your family is just one I shouldn't mess around with. Your sister is a fucking sociopath and you're a careless drunk!"

I stay quiet. I'm too tired and tipsy to care for what she says. Everything goes through one ear and leaves out the other.

"And I can't believe you knew that Myah was behind the whole thing! On top of it you did nothing! Maybe you didn't realize but what happened affected me a lot!" Mal argues. She's furious. "Kate messes up in the public eye and that messes up a lot especially with my mothers recent scandal. This is hard on business for my father and we keep screwing up things for him and he's getting angry. My family has been arguing for a week now!"

I see a cat in the dumpster and I so badly want to be the cat.

"You're sister can't just play god whenever she wants and you can't just let her!"

She stops yelling and slowly the anger leaves her face. She finally walks away to return to the apartment where Phoenix is.

I make my way to the stairs leading up to the doors and sit. It's late enough that no one is entering or exiting.

A bit later Phoenix walks out. At first she walks past me before realizing it's me and turning around.

"Koda? What're you doing?"

I shrug.

"You arguing with Mal? She came back up and drank half my bottle of wine." She holds up the bottle she had in her hands.

"I'll drink the other half," I say.

"I don't doubt you will," she says before sitting next to me on the concrete step.

It's silent as she opens the bottle and hands it to me.

"What's she mad about?"

"Family things," I say. "It's always family things."

"Families are tough."

"Even when I got away from mine I thought I wouldn't have to deal with all their shit."

"I get that. I mean I managed to get away from mine but mainly because I don't have the internet trying to bring us back together. Must suck being in the public eye when you don't want to be."