Hope (Tyrelliot)

Chapter 9: Mother Love

Elliot's POV

I open the door. Darlene's shoes are standing in the hall. She's here already.
I look around. The entire room stinks of cigarettes and alcohol. Mom isn't here though. She's probably doing extra hours at work. I find an incense and light it before going upstairs.

I enter my room. Everything's the same as I left it. I close the door and put my backpack on the ground.
Let's lie down for a minute.

I close my eyes. I'm trying to doze.

My phone vibrates. Ugh. I sit up and check who it is. It's Leon.

"U up?"

"Yeah"

"K, I wanted 2 send u the details about the project"

"Go"

To be honest, I completely forgot about that too. What the hell is wrong with me?

"We have 2 paint something that represent ourselves and mix it all 2gether"

Well, that is certainly not what I expected.

"If u like music you can paint notes or sum like that"

"Ok"

"U want 2 meet?"

"Not now"

"K, text me if u found a time when u want 2"

"K bye"

Something that represents ourselves... I feel like my side of the painting will be very dark. I'm going through some shit at the moment. I think I can tell you. Just because you never answer doesn't mean you don't listen, right?

My dad died a few years ago. He had Leukemia. He was the only person I could talk to. Now he's gone. I haven't felt any lonelier until that day. And it's only getting worse. Especially now, since mom is working or gets drunk a lot and Darlene is finding new interests, which apperantly don't include me. I mean obviously she doesn't include me, I'm her brother, we've been living together for 16 years. She must've gotten tired of me.
Sometimes I don't feel as comfortable in my bubble as I seem. I cry a lot when nobody's looking. Jesus, just thinking about that makes a single tear run down my cheek.

I hear the front door unlocking. That has to be mom.
As soon as I hear her, I wipe the tear away immediately, since she thinks crying is a waste of time. I tried to convince her many times that it's not, to me at least, but she hit me for saying that. I don't want that to happen again.

I'm not sure if she meant it though.
She's trying her best to keep us above water with everything we have left, especially from dad. He worked at a pretty big company and made good money. Now all I have left is my bartender mom. We're lucky if we can get 100$ together for the day.
It's a hard life.

Shit, now I'm opening up to you too. Something I can't even do with a real person.
Don't get me wrong. I trust you.
But right now, you're not my first pick. And you will probably never be.

"Dinner!"

Some hours have passed since we talked. It's dinner time.
I hear Darlene walking down the stairs fast. She's not running though.
I think I should get up and eat something.
I'll tell you how it went later.