"Why is this so important to you?"
"Just drop it please, Jamie."
"No, I wanna know, okay? I wanna know why you want so desperately to fit in when you obviously don't, Delilah."
"Because I don't wanna be forgotten. I don't wanna be forgotten, okay? I...
"Atelophobia is defined as the fear of not doing something right or the fear of not being good enough."
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chapter two: miss popularity
AFTER THE NIGHTMARE INCIDENT earlier this morning, I wasn't able to go back to sleep.
That means I ended up watching two episodes of some show I don't remember the name of, taking the longest shower known to man, picking out some kinda made up aesthetically pleasing outfit for school this morning, and unfortunately beginning to make the biggest regret of the day so far.
Emphasis on the unfortunate part of the sentence.
"What's that smell? Is something burning?!" My mom yelled as she came running from down the stairs.
The kitchen was filled with the smell of burning pancakes and I knew that she wasn't gonna be happy with the fact that all her cleaning from the day before was practically ruined.
As soon as she made it down she didn't even take a minute to examine the damage and rather just started to toss out the pancakes that I actually worked so hard on, believe it or not. Which I wouldn't believe if you could see them.
I kind of felt bad since I didn't even consider that Mom put in so much work yesterday and that she would have to come back to do all of the cleanings after me. It didn't help that she had already gotten put together for work which she would be late for now because of me. She was dressed in her white button-up and navy blue pencil skirt that now had a pancake batter stain near the thigh from leaning against the countertop.
"I'm really sorry, Mom. I thought I could actually attempt to make something edible this time. Even though now that I think about it could've waited until after I got home from school and not before. I obviously wasn't thinking,"
I felt apologetic about how she would have to come up with some crummy excuse for being late to work now. I used a towel to fan the burnt pancake smell in the kitchen away.
As if that would solve anything.
Mom sighed and shook her head as she simply continued to clean, "I know, honey, but I have a very important meeting this morning and I wanted to wear this," she said while gesturing towards her dress shirt that now had wet stains from cleaning.
I looked at my feet and started to pick at my fingernails. What do you do when you really can't do anything else but apologize a bunch. The school was gonna start any minute now and the mess on the counters and floor was way too much for me to finish and still make it on time.
So I needed to help in another way.
That's when I noticed that there weren't many dishes. I could knock them out and make it to school on time still if I got to work now.
"I'll just clean up the dishes, Mom. It was my fault anyway. Why don't you go finish getting ready, okay? Or get finished again maybe? I'll just finish up and walk to school today if Maddie's already out the door. No worries."
