supernova

23

It's been over five months since the New Years party.

AP tests ended last week, and I'm sure I'm ending the school with all A's.

I feel relived.

My mom's health has only gotten worse and it stresses me out more and more everyday.

Prom is coming up. The week after next week, and I don't have money for a dress.

I want to wear a dress my mom would like.   She likes girly and floral, and I prefer not to wear it, but I'm still gonna wear one. It's pretty, but it's not my style.

"Arabella, are you paying attention?" I heard Ms. Raj call me out. "Just because the AP test is over, doesn't mean you can slack off, Ms. Turner," she scolded and Atlas snickered next to me.

He stayed the same over the last five months. We constantly got into stupid fights, but I haven't hooked up with him again, and I certainly didn't kiss him again after New Years.

We tried to come to a mutual understanding, but we couldn't. Sometimes we were fine, but most of the time we weren't.

"I'm sorry," I murmured.

"Okay, so your final is going to be a lab. You can choose any of the labs to redo. I know you guys are stressed, so I thought I'd make it easy for you guys. You have two days to tell me, so I can print out the labs."

"Titration lab," I blurted out to Atlas, who just shrugged so I assumed he had agreed. I let Ms. Raj know about my decision before class ended.

"Monkey! You ready for clinicals?" Michael asked. We had clinicals for CNA. I had to passed the state test, so before that I had a whole weekend at the elderly nursing center to wipe shit and push in prolapses. That wasn't all I had to do, but it was some of the more interesting things. Once I was fully certified, I'm quitting at the café and working at a center.  Some places pay eighteen dollars an hour.

"Yea, I'm a bit nervous though."

"How's your mom?"

"Going to see her screws me up.  It's like she's decaying from all the treatment, but I know without it, she would've been dead a while ago," I painfully disclosed.

She was very thin, an unhealthy thin, but there was nothing that could be done about it. Along with her sickly looking skin, dark eye bags, and chapped powdery lips.

I never made her feel like I noticed it though. Always acted like when I looked at her, she still had her thick black curls, with her dark healthy skin, and bright eyes, and full lips. After I left her room, I almost cried at the realization that she kept looking sicker. The thought of losing her had me nauseous.

I'd go home and puke in my bathroom. When someone was over, they'd just sit there and hold my hair, and then we would act like it had never happened.  I had puked in front of Amukta, Michelle, Michael, Atlas, Daniyal, and even Kane, but we never spoke about it.

The first time it happened, was in front of Daniyal, who tried to talk about it, but I just shook my head.

I would always change the topic, and after a month, they just stopped asking, which I was very thankful for.

Lately, they were staying over more often.  I assured them I wanted to be alone, but they didn't listen, so I gave it up.

The rest of the day went by. It was normal. Normal one year ago had a completely different meaning to me.

It meant: school, home, sleep.

Now, normal meant: school, home, work, hospital, home, homework, maybe sleep.