Be Mine

one: "not this shit again"

"What's going on?" I asked when I joined my mother on the front porch. A U-Haul truck was standing on our driveway.

"I've been trying to explain to your mother why we were late with the delivery, but she won't listen to me," a tall man informed me. There was another man one sitting on the passenger seat.

"But we were already informed a few days ago. Why are you causing a scene, mom?" I looked at her and she just rolled her eyes.

"I'm not. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of the problem."

"There is no problem. I could hear you from the upstairs. The man got sick and the company couldn't get a quick replacement. Mom, that is it."

She shrugged and crossed her arms.

"I'm sorry," I turned to the man. "You see, this truck was supposed to come first because there are a lot of furniture and other things we needed on the first day. I had to sleep on bare mattress for a week!" I joked to ease the tension and the man seemed to loosen a bit.

"Well, then I'm sorry to hear that," he laughed. "Let us help you put all the stuff inside.

"That would be great," I smiled.

I took the four of us some time to get the bed frames, dressers and many other smaller furniture along with countless amount of boxes out of the truck. After we were finished my mom asked them to stay for a coffee and, to my surprise, she apologized to them and tried to play it off as if nothing has happened. It was such a minute inconvenience and she made it seem like something it really wasn't.

"I'm sorry for today. I had a stressful day at the hospital," she said as I was loading up the dishwasher.

"Yeah, I can imagine."

"Listen, I've been trying to make it all work, but your attitude and behavior are not helpful."

"What do you mean?" I turned her way and leaned onto the counter.

"I've been bombarding the Bel Air high school with calls, trying to sign you in but it turns out they're not sure whether they want someone like you-"

"Someone like me?" I interrupted. "You don't pass a year and all of the sudden you're treated like you're trash or something."

"You were almost thrown out of your previous school because of your grades..."

"I'm sorry I couldn't focus on finishing some stupid assignment while my father was slowly dying in front of my eyes!" I yelled and ran upstairs. I didn't want her to see the tears falling down my cheeks.

I hated when she brought up school in conversation because it always ended the same way. There was just no point. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to go back to school. Why would I want to? I'd rather find a job than repeat my senior year all over again. But I knew she would never let me do that. She didn't take 'no' for an answer and it was the only thing I could be sure about when it came to school.

I went into my room where I already started unpacking some boxes. I still had to put together my bed frame because I finally wanted to sleep in a normal bed. The room itself wasn't too big but it had a decent walk-in closet which saved me a lot of floor space. There was a giant window with low and wide windowsill I could sit on and read books. I've always dreamed of a little corner like this. The only thing I hated about the room were the walls. They were painted an awful purple color and I knew at some point I would have to repaint them white. I wondered how long it would take before this color drove me insane.

As I was organizing books my father left me and putting them on shelves, there was a knock on my door.

"Come in."