Worth It

Prologue

Nick's point of view

Life is a peculiar existence. It's both the longest and shortest feeling anyone could possibly fathom, but not due to duration; due to experience. That's the ticket on whether or not life feels like it's passing by minute by minute, or if it's actually worth something.

Ever since I was little, my dad has always had some sort of obsession with finding the things that are the most 'worth it' in his life. He's always told me, "Nick, life will pass you by if you don't see the worth in the things around you," to which I roll my eyes at now. How ironic, seeing as he left my mom for some blonde bimbo who will probably break his heart in a week. 

My thoughts race pass quickly, and I'm taken back to reality hearing my mother holler my name, telling me to hurry up and that we're ready to leave. I take one last look at the bedroom that's been my sanctuary for seventeen years, my home. My posters have been taken down, my clothes out of the closet. The bedsheets were stripped down. I close my eyes and turn out the light, closing the door behind me. 

I slowly walk down the hard mahogany stairs, my hand gliding against the hand rail for the last time. It's funny how much you don't realize that you love the simple, small, every day things until you lose them. But Mom has to leave for her own sanity, and Dad couldn't possibly stay here by himself and pay the rent alone. I sincerely hope he enjoys his artificial life in an apartment that no one could mask the smell of sex and alcohol if one tried. As I come downstairs, he's there, passed out on the couch with an empty six pack on the coffee table. I quickly avert my eyes, not wanting to linger for too long. 

I don't need to say a pathetic sob story goodbye to the rest of the house filled to the attic with haunting memories of fights and arguments and degrading, it would just make the process harder than it's already become. I step forward to the door, locking the handle before I walk outside so I officially have no way to go back in, pacing down the patio stairs and to my mom's truck, where she sits in the driver's seat, eager but exhausted at the same time. I've always wondered how she does it. I grab her hand and rub her knuckles comfortingly, and it seems like only then she snapped out of her own little world and realized I'd gotten in. I give her a small smile to which she returns, starting up the truck. "Ready to go, hon?"

"No. Let's go." I say gently, putting on my seatbelt. I lean my head back and stare at the sunset as we drive off to our new life in my mother's hometown, Longview, Oregon. Population 1200. Now 1202.