[onhold] Through All Seasons

1│Winter: 'You call me monster.'

New year, new me? Rather a new year, still me. 

It's January and school is about to start. Yay me. Despite the uneventful winter break, the only positive thing that came out was catching up on the sleep I had been missing out on.

"River. Come down here." My mother called me. 

I ran downstairs, where my mom was already waiting at the foot of the stairs.  

"River. I'm hungry. The groceries I bought today are not meant to rot, so go and make something out of them. I will relax a bit from this exhausting day of work. You know how this household keeps running." And off she was. I heard the television beaming through the walls. 

I sighed. The deal was she brings home food and money, while I take care of work inside the house. Like cooking dinner. 

My mom is a very strict and always super busy woman. She never seems to be relaxed and always on the edge. I wanted to support her, but I felt like her love and kindness for me got lost on the way. At this point, I wasn't even sure she loved me at all. At least she never expressed it. 

Since I didn't want to stress her more than she already was, I went to the kitchen to check out what the freshly bought groceries had to offer me for dinner. 

Noodles, pasta, mozzarellas. Well, that didn't leave much room for interpretation. 

I heated up the water, added salt and after the water started boiling, I shoved the spaghetti inside. You could say I'm a pasta maker expert. Probably I make some sort of pasta dish every other day.

After around five minutes I also heated up the tomato sauce and mixed it with the cut mozzarella. On the windowsill, I grew basil which I always put on top of the tomato sauce. I feel like a chef then, don't blame me. 

"Mom. Dinner is ready." 

"Can you bring it to me in the living room?" she shouted back.

Sure. The usual. We never eat dinner together. I put the plate and a glass of water on a meal tray and brought it over to her. She was watching Bachelor again. 

My mom and my dad split when I was very little and since then she never let any men enter her or our life. She always said she swore off men, they bring nothing but sadness and bad luck. So it was just us two girls. 

I took my plate of pasta to my room and ate it while watching YouTube videos. I found a new channel who played RPG Maker Horror Games and I discovered my massive interest in it. I mean, even though it is completely pixelated I still got scared. 

It definitely distracted me from my school issues. 

The thing was I was not particularly unpopular or by any case popular, but it seemed like people didn't notice me at all. If they'd been asked anything about a River at their school, they most likely had no idea who this was about. And I am not the type of person who brings a lot of attention to herself. So over the two years of high school, I tried to get comfortable with being a no one. Literally a no one. Just a someone for myself. 

The first few months of my junior year were already over. Nothing changed so far. 

I got up in the morning feeling exhausted, tired and not ready for the day. 

The first day of school looked like my mood: it was pouring outside. 

I got dressed, spent a few minutes in the bathroom, packed my backpack (including my current read) and went for the garage, where my bike was parked.