4:00 AM// j.g, c.d

2

The room was dark, save for the hallway light shining through the crack of the door. My exhausted eyes stared up at the ceiling fan spinning at an awfully slow pace, which was serving me injustice considering my sheets were damp with my own sweat. I barely managed to turn my head to the side to check the time displayed in electric blue numbers, three o'clock in the morning.

"You're making this place a living hell!" I heard my mom scream, and I tried to focus on the spinning fan. I should be out there, defending her from my most likely drunk father, instead I'm in my room pretending I'm asleep.

"Am I really the one making it a living hell, Naomi? If it wasn't for your stubborn ass everything would be perfectly fine." My father's voice joined in, and the door to my room was opened.

"Lana." My sister's tone of voice alarmed me almost as much as the large suitcase next to her did. Why would she need her suitcase? I can't imagine any place she could go with such a huge suitcase. "I can't do this anymore."

It didn't take me long to make connections to the suitcase and her words to see where this was going. "Please, don't." My words barely made out as a whisper as I stood up.

"I can't stay here anymore, I'm leaving." Her voice quivered around the words, and I knew this was really happening.

My sister was the last person I expected to leave me, and the first to do so. I couldn't fully blame her though, living in this family became a suffering. Afraid to come home from school everyday, week after week, month after month, was growing unbearable. A very small part of me was actually considering going wherever she was.

I was close to asking why she was leaving, but I stopped myself as I knew all the reasons and more. "Where are you going?" I choked the words out of my throat.

"I..." her voice trailed off as she hedged on what to say next, "I can't tell you that. You don't need to know unless-"

"I don't need to know? You can't just leave me here with them and not have the audacity to tell me where you're going!" my voice came out sharper than intended, "You can't just abandon me and Bryan like this!"

"Bryan chose not to come with me." her voice controlled and calm, "If you'd just let me finish my sentence I was about to ask if you wanted to go with me."

I stayed silent, thinking about the huge offer that could change my life for the better or worse. I had no idea where she was planning to run away to but I had a feeling it wouldn't be great considering she had no form of money.

"You're strong, Lana." She stepped past me and towards the large window next to my dresser. "But I'm not, so I'm leaving the problem instead of wasting my time dealing with it." Her hands fiddled with the window latch until I heard a soft click. All the hopelessness in her face had been replaced with fear.

"You didn't see me leave. Do you understand, Lana? You didn't see me go."

And that was the last time I saw her.

My body jolted upright from the sweat-drenched sheets with my hand pressed firmly against my chest. My heartbeat was erratic against my palm, and I held my hand until I eventually felt my heart rate slow. It was the fourth time this week I had woken up like this and my poor sheets were getting discolored from washing it every time.

After ten minutes of contemplating whether or not I should climb out of bed or not, I got up. As in 'got up' I mean tumbled off the bed and onto the floor taking the sheets with me.

I could, throw my dirty sheets into the laundry bin, and have it sitting there until my mother was sober and ready to do laundry, though that'd take days. My step-father has been gone on a huge business trip for the past month or so and my mother hasn't been handling it all too well. She tends to get what the media calls 'binge drinking' whenever she is depressed or stressed out.

My birth father had been gone for almost as long as my sister has, who he followed months after her disappearance. I received a phone call once in a blue moon from dad for an update of his well-being as well as if he'd found my sister yet. Even after three years, he still hadn't been able to find her. I lost all hope that he ever would.

For a short amount of time, he sent money for bills but it wasn't needed after my mother had found a man online that she 'fell in love' with. To her advantage... as well as my brother's and I's advantage, he was filthy rich. The man practically shit money for a living. After a couple of dates involving him flying from California to Miami, my mother was head over heels for the man and made the decision for the family to move to California, in order to live with him.

Moving into Beverly Park; one of the richest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, was without a doubt, decent, coming from an old shitty neighborhood with shady neighbors in the heart of Miami. A tour in Beverly Park was charged around 20 bucks per person in order to see celebrities homes, while I lived here for free. As in free, I mean my step-father works his ass off in order to pay for rent every month.

A loud beeping coming from my phone informed me that it was officially time to get up. I smacked my phone in all hopes that it would shut up and I could fall back to sleep, but I couldn't already miss a day of school, it's only my second day after all.

A quick shower was all I could handle today, and I barely even brushed my hair before I realized I don't give a damn what my hair looked like. By the end of the day my hair was always a mess anyways; I never could keep my hands out of it especially when I'm nervous.

I threw on ripped black jeans that I found hanging on the couch in front of my TV, paired with a cropped grey shirt and Adidas shoes. Considering how exhausted I was makeup wasn't even an option at this point.

I paused when I saw my mother sloppily laid on the couch with a quarter empty Captain Morgan bottle in her left hand. I should say that I'm surprised but this is probably the sixth time this week that she drank all night and passed out in the living room, might as well call the couch her bed at this rate.

On a normal day, I would get a soft blanket and gently place it over her, but today wasn't a normal day. I was already prepared to plop into my bed after the day at school was over.

I stopped at Bryan's room on my way to the front door and gave a small knock. Their was no answer but their never was, he had an annoying habit of falling asleep with his headsets on and would never hear me knock. Cracking the door open, I poked my head in.

I knew I smelled something putrid and strong when I stepped into the hallway, and sure enough Bryan was resting on his bed with a lit blunt resting between his lips. His laptop was sitting on his lap as he was most likely FaceTiming his girlfriend on the clouds of marijuana.

I coughed as the stench filled my nostrils. "Bryan, I'm going to school."

He glanced up at me and removed one earphone. "Fuck you want?"

Clearly, he didn't hear me. With a roll of my eyes, "I'm going to school loser, I lost the house key so lock the door or something."

"Mhm yeah..." His mind seemed to be somewhere else, probably due to the amount of weed he'd previously been smoking. "Sure okay yea, now get outta here".

I viewed the sick sight of his beyond messy room. A variety of empty soda cans and food packages along with dirty clothes and even couple of condom wrappers surrounded his bed. It was far beyond the point of just cleaning, the kid probably had to hire a few maids and some in order to get rid of all the clutter and dirt living in the room. I had the most disgusted look on my face, "Oh and clean your room. I'm pretty sure I just saw a rat crawl from underneath your bed."

You could probably give Bryan a few million bucks and he'd take the money and throw it in your face, claiming he already has all he wants. The high school dropout with a decent girlfriend and a deep craving for drugs was satisfied where his life was at. My step father continuously tried to persuade him into applying to a college but Bryan always brushed it off.

Around middle school he began smoking marijuana, it was his form of escape from all the bullshit happening at home. Eventually marijuana wasn't hitting the spot for him anymore, so he got his hands on the pills mom took to sleep. In the tenth grade, Mom and Dad got into a huge argument and he swallowed all the pills left in the bottle which resulted in overdose. It had to be one of the scariest nights of my life, I thought I'd lose him forever. After all, he's all I really have after my sister left three years ago.

I happen to have a past for myself as well. Though I'll never speak of it, because if I did, I'd be in prison.