Broken Bottles

Broken Bottles: chapter 2

I got to school with five minutes to spare. Luckily since it was my fourth year at this awful school, I knew where my first class was just by the room number on my schedule. I walked into the room right on the bell and took one of the few desks left. I sighed as I sat down and rubbed a hand down my face. School for me was just average. I had a few friends, but they were mostly just school friends. I kept quiet in class and did my work when I was given it. My sister Penny though, she could go places. She was in all honor classes and she does pretty good in them too. I was positive she could somehow figure out how to get some type of degree once she graduated.

I finished my last first day like it was any other day, average. Now, I had to go back home and start living my completely not average life. All thanks to two very 'important' people in my life. The first being my mother, who came and went from our lives whenever she pleased, and the second being my dear father, who is a drunk and screwed up his life more times then me and all four of my siblings can count on our hands.

I entered my house behind my four siblings and wasn't really paying attention until I heard Penny gasp.

"Oh my god!" She screamed.

"What? What's going on?" I asked as I pushed my three other siblings to the side to be next to Penny. My eyes widened at what I saw.

Sitting on the coffee table in the living room was three huge stacks of money. They definitely weren't there when we left the house that morning.

"Where did all of this come from?" Sidney asked as he approached the money and took one of the stacks in his hands.

"These are all twenties!" He exclaimed.

"Where's dad?" Penny asked. I looked at her and realized she must have been thinking the same thing I was.

Our father did something illegal.

"Daddy!" Sadie pointed towards the man emerging from the kitchen. I felt my eyebrows shoot up when I saw him standing there. Normally at this time of day he was still out at some bar getting wasted.

"Hey, cupcake, how was school?" My dad asked Sadie with only a slight slur in his speech. He was probably only slightly buzzed.

"Good! My teacher is really nice." Sadie answered.  She was still too little to fully grasp how bad our father was and I think I envied her for that. She could sense when something was off with our dad, but she was still young enough to fall for his fake sense of care and affection.

"Where did you get this money?" I asked harshly. Unlike Sadie, I lost faith in our father years ago.

"Gambling." He answered, like it was completely normal for him to come home with three large stacks of twenties.

"Gambling how?" I pushed further.

"Down at Stevie's in his back room." Stevie's was a bar down the street and I knew dad was a frequent costumer.

"Is it clean?" I asked, taking the stack Sidney was holding out of his hand.

"Of course it is! You have no faith in me, son." Dad responded, feigning being offended.

"Well, then I need this stack to pay for bills." I shook the stack I had in my hands.

"You can have half of that pile." Dad tried to grab the stack from my hand, but I pulled it out of reach.

"No way. This is probably only one-fourth of the money you've taken from us over the years, so I'm getting all of it."

"Don't you test me, boy." Dad threatened.