Famous Last Words - Lyn-G

Chapter 1: the one with some morrissey

Take me out tonight

Where there's music and there's people

Who are young and alive

Driving in your car

I never never want to go home

Because I haven't got one anymore

Morrissey's voice flows into my ears, the steady beat and legato notes of the song soothing my brain. Stretching my arms above my head and hearing the joints in my shoulders pop pleasingly, I grab my school bag and hop down the stairs, watching out for the seventh step that always creaks.

And if a double-decker bus

Crashes in to us

To die by your side

Is such a heavenly way to die

Humming to myself, the music echoing through my earbuds blocking out the sound of the rest of the world, I rummage the kitchen cabinets for an energy bar. Just as my hand closes around a Blueberry Bliss energy bar, I feel myself getting yanked back. I let out a small sound of pain, hissing as I lift my hand to massage the back of my head. With the bar still intact in my left hand, and Morrissey's voice, oddly unfitting for the situation, in my ears, I turn around and come face-to-face with my mom. 

She looks unstable. Her hair is messy, some strands sticking to her forehead, others floating in a halo of greasy hair above her head; her eyes look sunken in, emphasized by the dark circles around her eyes; her lips are stained an, uneven red color, some of the crimson seeping outside her lips, leftover lipstick from the previous night; she's wearing clothes that could be considered presentable unless they weren't crumpled and stained with very possible liquid imaginable. I sigh, frustrated, as I see the way she opens and then closes her mouth, searching for words while trying not to let the contents of her stomach spill onto the hardwood floors. She's hungover.

"Good morning," I grumble, watching as my mom steadies herself with the wall next to her.

"Where the hell are you going at this time?" My mom slurs, trying to focus on my face, but instead almost falling over. I sigh and rip out my earbuds, throwing them in my bag along with the energy bar. 

"In case you remember, I go to school, everyday and learn so I can get a job and not end up a miserable alcoholic like you," I spit at my mom. 

It's not like her coming home, drunk, is anything new; it's the way it's been for years. After my father left me and my mom when I was ten, Mom's behavior spiraled out of control. She had always had a weakness for alcohol, getting herself tipsy almost every night and blackout drunk at family gatherings. However, my dad had been able to control her, getting her to bed every night and providing her with water and aspirin the next morning. Around alcohol, she was a train wreck, but we put up with it, trying our best to not let her drink. But she always won. When my father had finally had enough of my irresponsible mother, her drinking and her overall laziness, he left, promising me to come back one day. He never did. Instead, he left me, at ten years old, alone with my mother who became a shadow of what she used to be. If I thought she'd been a wreck when my father was around, she became an explosion of anger, alcohol and bitchy comments after he left. She would leave the house almost every night and go out to bars, drinking until she couldn't remember where she lived, and would then be escorted home by some kind soul, after which she proceeded to throw our belongings around the house and crash out on the couch, waking up the next day with a horrible hangover. I was the one to help her. I tried my best, but I wasn't the same as my father. When I offered my mom to help her to bed after a bad night, she would hiss at me and maybe even slap me, saying she could sleep on the couch for one night. But one night turned into two, two into three, three nights into a week, and soon, she had practically abandoned her room and moved to the couch. It was a fucked up routine; drink, crash at home, puke, complain, repeat. 

I guess she found something enchanting and alluring in the world of alcohol, but I saw nothing good in it. The substance made anyone loopy, changed the best person to the worst one and never brought any good along with it. 

"Oh yeah, of course," my mom waved me off and swayed unsteadily from one foot to the other.

"I'll be home at four, do you need anything?" I ask, trying to conceal the anger that bubbled inside me. I thought she would've stopped her disgusting habits after she turned fifty last year, but I was wrong. My mother was still going strong, the amount of tequila and vodka she consumed not seeming to slow her down. 

"I'm good, I'm good. Now go have fun!" She giggled, then winced at the sunlight pushing through the windows and lighting up the whole house. 

"I'd hardly call it fun," I mutter as I push past her, taking a shaky breath as I push my feet into a pair of Converse and march out of the house and to my car.

-

Ok so this was such bullshit, that I edited it, and (hopefully?) improved it a bit. I'm going to be doing the same for the first 6 chapters or so. The storyline won't change, and you don't have to reread the beginning or anything, it's more for new readers and me. 

Thank you :)