Just A Drag No One Wants To Inhale

Epilogue: 34th Street

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It's my last Christmas Eve before moving away. And the day so far has been a total drag. I hated everything that waited for me outside my bedroom door. Except Grandad, who couldn't come upstairs to greet me because his knees and bad hip refused to cooperate.

Frank Senior was here, and tried way too fucking hard to win me over, which in turn, made me believe that he was an even bigger  phony than what I initially thought. But Mom and Mimi drank that shit up.

'Give your father a chance, Frank.'  My mother told me as I helped her make the stuffing in the kitchen that afternoon.

Yeah, that's right, I picked up on my own slack and started to help my mother around the house.

But I don't want to give that cunt another chance, he fucking blew it and cunts don't fucking deserve a second chance. But it's not up to me, it's up to her. And no matter how often I reminded everyone the entire fucking day  about what he had done, no one seemed amused.

Everyone called me a drama-queen and said that I was over-reacting. How original, I didn't realize that my family had the same mentality as half of the fifteen-year-old girls in my sch- in my old  school.

I hated everyone and everything for hours, and even when my father was saying grace before we ate our Christmas Eve dinner, I didn't even bother holding anyone's hand. After Grandad realized that I wasn't going to take his hand, he slowly reached across from me and took his son's hand.

As we were eating, Frank Senior popped the question, 'So, Frank, why didn't you hold our hands when I said grace?'

There was no way I could answer that question without offending someone. And instead of just offending him, I offended everyone at the dinner table. Classic Frank move right there.

I ruined Christmas by stating that I wasn't Catholic. That I was questioning religion entirely. 

No one liked that response and I ate my Christmas Dinner in the uncomfortable silence comfortably. No one asked about Jorden or Jamia or the dance, and I'm glad they didn't.

Once I'd chugged my entire glass of milk, on the brink of a mental breakdown, I asked my mother if I could be excused. She granted my wish, and I said goodbye to both Mimi and Grandad before running upstairs to my room, shutting the door slowly behind me.

I stared around at my bare-naked room and hot tears fell from my eyes and down my cheeks. It was so very bare. So naked. The only things that gave my walls any form of individuality were the left-over pieces of tape that I couldn't pick off, and the black skid marks lower on the walls, towards the floor from my attempts at practicing my skateboard in my room.

This isn't my home anymore. Tomorrow we're waking up early, putting our remaining memories in boxes and bags in the back of the moving truck Frank Senior rented and drive away into the dark, uninviting morning.

I blindly played a CD with my shaking hands and blurred vision, and slowly slid down the wall. I pulled my knees up to my chest and nestled my face into my legs. I cried in silence as the music bounced off the bare-naked walls and rang in my ears, still rolled in a ball of self-pity, self-hate and depression.

I pulled the bottom of my shirt to my face and rubbed it raw. I stared out into the street, to look for some form of happiness or distraction.

The top of a ladder was visible for a second, and I saw the windowpanes shake. Someone is going to try and get in it. Frozen in fear, I could not even hear the music blast in my room.