The Beginning
I feel the person next to me nudge my left shoulder, my mind snapping back to reality from my daydream. My eyes scan the gymnasium full of students in their shorts and baggy t-shirts with our school logo on them. Most of the girls are sitting on the bleachers, gossiping about meaningless things while most of the boys are playing basketball roughly with one another. My eyes land on the person who grabbed my attention.
"What?" I say as I take a half step away from him, as my face forms a curious expression.
"I was going to ask you if you were okay, you looked like you were about to pass out."
"Oh, sorry, I was just day dreaming." I look away from him at the boys yelling at each other to throw the ball.
"Oh okay, I was just making sure." He walks away and starts jogging towards the basketball game going on. I lean my back against the cold, painted-over brick wall of the gym as I notice our gym teacher, Mr. Jones, walk in with the assistant principal. I never remember her name, why should I, she barely remembers ours. Mr. Jones blows the whistle and everyone in the gym stops what they're doing and looks at him. He motions everyone to come to him; the girls get up and walk towards him and the assistant principal and the boys join in too, one of them taking the ball back to the net where the other ones where. I walk over and stand in the back of the crowd of students as he begins to speak.
"Students, there's been a sudden personal issue at home that I need to address immediately, so Mrs. Lakewood will be taking over the class for the rest of the period." I zone out while he continues speaking, but I can't help but think about why every time we have Physical Education, the boys would play basketball and the girls would sit to the side and talk. Why don't the boys sit and talk while the girls play basketball? I focus on what is going on when the door accidentally slams shut and Mrs. Lakewood takes a step forward.
"As Mr. Jones just told you guys, I will be taking over the rest of the class for today. He's given me a list of games we can play to pass the time. Now, we will first be playing Dodgeball, so Leon and Tyler, will you retrieve the foam balls for the game?"
Leon and Tyler both stand and race each other over to the corner where the net of foam balls were and they begin setting them along a black line that divides the gym in half.
"Now, girls go to the left side of the room, and the boys go to the right side of the room." Mrs. Lakewood finishes as she goes and sits on the bleachers, watching the girls and boys go to their assigned side. I look at both sides, starting to get confused at which one to go to. I stand there awkwardly as Mrs. Lakewood calls out my name.
"Ashlynn, girls are on the left." I feel almost everyone's eyes on me as everyone's on their correct side. How did they go on their sides without any hesitation? I hesitantly jog over to the corner of the girls side, feeling uncomfortable. Mrs. Lakewood counts down from five and the game begins.
8 Years Later, Junior Year
I'm laying on my bed as I have my speaker on full volume, blaring "Welcome to the Black Parade" by My Chemical Romance. They've always been my favorite band since seventh grade when I had my emo phase; now I will be honest, I probably haven't grown out of that phase since then, but I've toned down the eyeliner and "whatever" attitude. I haven't met anyone who hasn't regretted their middle school year, especially seventh grade. No one looks back at themselves and thinks, "I wasn't so bad as everyone said in middle school." People who think that probably have the biggest ego ever. As I'm scrolling through my Instagram feed, I hear a car pull up to my house and I slide off my bed, move aside my curtain a bit and see who it is. It's my mom. Damn, it's five o'clock, already? I close my curtain and turn around as I turn down my music. After a minute passes, I hear the front door open up and I walk down to greet who I thought was my mother. When I get to the bottom of the stairs, my smile that I had on my face drops a bit as I notice it wasn't my mom, it was my step-dad, Kevin. I turn back around and start heading back upstairs, a little disappointed because I thought my mom got home. I never liked Kevin, no one sees it but he's abusive. Not physically, just verbally; Only to me though. I'd rather get verbally abused by him than sit back and watch my mother get abused and I can't do anything to stop it. They've been married for about a year and since he moved in, he thinks he owns the place and has lived here his entire life. Which isn't true, he's only been here for a year and he can go fuck himself. God, I wouldn't mind driving a screw driver into his ears. As I'm halfway up the stairs, he yells at me and tells me to come back down. I let out a silent sigh as I put on a smile while I walk back down to him.
"Yes?" I say as I look at him.
"What were you doing?" He asks as soon as I finish saying "yes". He takes a couple steps towards me and tosses the car keys down onto the small, wooden table next to the stairs.
"I was just walking back upstairs, I thought it was mom." The words fall from my mouth as I nervously scratch my right leg with my left foot.
"Well, your moms not gonna be home for a while, she had to work late tonight." He walks to the living room and plops down onto the leather recliner next to the potted plant in the corner of the room.
"How is she supposed to get home?" I slightly regretted the words that came out of my mouth as my eyes wandered over to him.
"Ill pick her up when she's done, or she can catch a cab or something," He grabs the remote and turns the TV on. "Hey, be a good daughter and make me food, I'm starving."
My face cringed as he said the word "daughter", but I don't know why. I am a bit disgusted a douche bag like him would have the audacity to call me his daughter, anyway. I walk to the kitchen and pause once I step a foot into it.
"What do you want?" I say as I try to be as nice as possible; I'm not in the mood to argue with him.
"The usual; Ramen. You should know this, you do this every day, how could you forget so damn easily?" He says a bit harshly as I walk to the cabinet and grab two packs of the chicken flavored ramen out of the box.
"I'm sorry." I continue to grab a bowl and put the ramen in it, pouring water in it. As I'm doing so, I hear him talking under his breath.
"What a stupid child." He says as he's flipping through the TV channels.
4.5 hours later
I walk downstairs and it's sort of quiet, I hear the TV is still on, he could never turn it off. Once I got down the stairs, I saw he was sleeping in the recliner with beer cans scattered everywhere around him, though, my mother isn't home. I saw his phone ding with messages from a half hour ago from my mom. The last one she sent said that she was getting a cab home. God, he's such an irresponsible prick, fuck him. As I head to the kitchen, I see headlights flash outside and a car pulls up in front of my house, but then drives away a minute after. As I open the fridge door, the front door opens and my mom walks in. I grab a bottle of water and close the fridge as my mother sets her purse on the ground next to the small table next to the stairs and takes off her coat. She hangs it upon the coat hanger and kicks off her shoes. She meets me in the kitchen and pulls me into a hug; I obviously hug her back because I haven't seen her all day.
"God, I'm sorry I got home so late, Kevin had to borrow the car and was supposed to pick me up after work, but he didn't answer his phone so I got a cab. I missed you." She lets me out of her warm embrace. The smell of cheap perfume and cigarettes remains as she walks to the corner cabinet that has all the medications and she takes out a bottle.
"Why do you smell like cigarettes?" I ask her, curiously as she takes some pills out of an orange and blue pill bottle.
"A client I had to meet up with smokes and he smoked while I had a meeting with him. I don't mind it, but he could've at least considered blowing the smoke somewhere other than at me." She walks to the fridge and I step out of the way. Before she opens it, she kisses me of the cheek.
"You should get to bed, it's starting to get late." She opens it and grabs a bottle of water.
"You probably should, you had a long day and you look tired." I say as I leave the kitchen, and walk to the stairs but hold onto the railing.
"Yeah, that's what I'm going to try to do in a bit, but first I need to watch some TV relax." She sighs as she takes her pills.
"Goodnight, Mom." I head up the stairs, towards my room and walk in, shutting the door. I strip until I'm in my t-shirt and underwear and then I toss myself onto my bed. I sit up for a second to drink a bit of my water and set it on the table next to me. I cover myself how I the blanket and turn the light out, easily drifting off into a nice, comfortable, sleep.