Neither is Good

It is past twelve pm on a Sunday night. The music is loud, and the people are louder, and drunker, than I have seen for a while now. Of course, it is not my party that I am attempting to end. It is my mother’s.

Jillian Hattoway isn't really what you could call a good mother. She drinks, does drugs, smokes, amongst other considerably unsavory things. Plus, the fact that she parties almost all the time, at all hours of the day or night. Six of the seven days a week she is either: higher than a kite; or so drunk that she wouldn't be able to tell you what her own name is. The seventh day is usually the day she has set aside so that she can end the hangover or crash like a bumper car.

My father, Doctor Jonathan C. Hattoway is not much of a father either, though I could say he is better than my mother. He at least makes sure I have a roof over my head and food in my stomach. Usually.

He is a particularly good, exceedingly popular, neurosurgeon stationed mainly at the local Southwelling's hospital about forty minutes away from our house by car, and he works almost all the time. Although my mother usually just wastes most of the money he makes on her 'needs'. If you could call them that.

My Father rarely comes home. Spending most of his time at the hospital or at a friend from work's house, who lives closer to the hospital and his only love, work, than we do.

My older brother, Matthew, moved out about two years ago to go to college somewhere in British Columbia. I miss him dearly, and not only because he was the only one who I could kind of count on in this messed up family.

Then there is me. I am an average seventeen-year-old girl, left to her own devices almost all the time. A good example is right now.

I try to shimmy my way through the tightly packed, incredibly sweaty, bodies as they grind together in the middle of my living room. Looking around myself, attempting to spot my most definitely drunken mother. I need to at least know that she’s still in the house, even if she isn’t trying to do anything for the party she decided to throw. Of course, my mother does not want to be found, so I can't find her. Or she’s already ditched, which would be the worse of the two options. I’m hoping that she’s just somewhere I haven’t looked yet. However, being a shorter person than most of the attendees of my mother’s party kind of means that I can't see over anyone to even begin trying to locate my mother in the crowd.

"Damn inconsiderate woman," I mutter under my breath.

"Well, hello there pretty little lady," I hear someone say from behind me, someone going and grabbing my butt. As If I really want someone to grope my butt in this kind of situation.

I jump away, startled at the man's aggressive and drunken flirting. "What do you want?" I ask bitterly as I turn to see a really tall, light skinned man standing not all that far away from me. He's drunk off his ass and looking down my shirt.

What a Pervert.

"Well, aren't you feisty," He chuckles like the drunken bastard he most probably is. I just barely avoid rolling my eyes at him, I don’t need to make him an annoyed drunken bastard, not right now at least. I turn away and then continue in my pursuit of the hidden mother, but then he gives my butt an extra squeeze and I feel my rage rising. I spin around and smack his hand away from me.

"No, I'm unavailable. To you and anyone else." I snap at him then point to my eyes. "My eyes are up here buddy, not on my boobs" I growl then turn away again, to try and find my mother again, but the man grabs my arm roughly.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa pretty little thing. Where do you think you're going?" He asks in a hard voice, tugging on my arm trying to pull me closer to him.

"Anywhere that is as far from you as possible," I mutter, wrenching my arm from his slick grasp and slipping through the gaps between the still ever-grinding bodies. I look at my watch and see that it is almost one in the morning. I want to cry. I have school tomorrow too. I do end up groaning rather loudly, though it can’t be heard over the blasting music, and continue my search for my mother.

I finally find her in the dining room, smoking something that looks like crushed crystals and drinking some straight up whiskey from the bottle. Not sure where she managed to find either of those things considering I was underage and couldn’t purchase alcohol, nor did I even want to get anywhere near the drugs she relies so heavily on. Of course, that's what she's doing right at this moment, in the midst of her rambunctious party, should have known better. Should have just checked here first. At least she didn’t leave the house this time. Not causing me several hours of looking for her in the middle of the night.

"Okay, the party's over!" I scream and turn off the old beat-up stereo that is conveniently sitting near my mother. "EVERYBODY OUT OF THE HOUSE!" I belt out. Nobody had moved after I turned off the music, what else was I supposed to do?

I hear a mass amount of mumbling coming from the drunken, overly large crowd as they all make their way through the front door, leaving our house. I sigh in relief, but the feeling only lasts so long before I feel someone tapping me on my shoulder rapidly.

"Yes?" I ask, turning to see the face of my mother. I glare at her unkindly. "What would you like?" I snap, unable to keep my anger from my voice. Or off my face.

"Why'd you kill the mood, dude?" She slurs the question and I huff out a breath in agitation. Moving my hand through my hair as I do so.

"I am not a dude; I am your daughter. And I have school tomorrow for fucks sake." I snap at her then turn my back to her. "If you wanted this kind of life, you shouldn't have married my father, or had Matthew and me. Hell, you could have just walked out a long time ago and saved us all this…” I wave my arms around us, probably looking like a lunatic, but the floor is filthy, and I just know that I’m going to be in charge of cleaning it all up. “Shit." I finish telling her without turning around. I know she probably only comprehended about a sixteenth of that statement and the rest was garbled gibberish in her unfocused head.

Note to self: Never try to reason with your mother when she's like this. It isn’t worth the effort.

I simply shake my head before making my way up the stairs and to my room. I'm slightly wishing my mother might consider cleaning up her party's mess. There is no real hope in the fleeting thought of the wish. I know for a fact that tomorrow once I get home from my shift at Barney's after school, I will be cleaning up after her stupidity.

I sigh and when I enter my room hoping for a nice dreamless sleep, only I see a nearly naked couple on my bed.

"SHIT NO!" I scream while covering my eyes with my hands. This so cannot be happening right now! "Party's over, now get the fuck out of my room!" I shriek at the startled, drunken couple who were making out and more than likely on the way to attempting to try and make babies on my bed. Dammit, I have to change the sheets now.

I hear scrambling and then hear a woman mutter 'kill joy' in my direction as they pass. I scoff. Wonder what she'd say if she found two random drunken people that she doesn't know making babies, or whatever, on her bed. I groan at the thought.

"Great, now I have to burn that bedding. Great party mother." My shoulders sag under the weight of my tiredness, I am utterly exhausted, and go to strip my sheets. Careful not to touch the area they 'used' to do what they were doing.

I throw those now useless sheets in the trash and go out to the hall closet to try and scavenge myself up some new sheets so that I can make the bed sleep-in-able.

I see my mother stumbling her way up the stairs with a large grin on her face. As if she had just thought up the most amazing idea in the world. She's dragging some dudes behind her as she goes. Oh great.

I simply scowl at her before going back to my hunt for clean bedding.

I hear my mother's door slam closed behind me just as I find some sheets. I don't understand why she bothers to go in there. In about an hour I have no doubt that she'll be out wandering the house because she's too high to sleep and bored of whoever she took in there with her in hopes of whatever satisfaction she can get.

I sigh and carefully make my way back into my room. I make sure to lock my bedroom door before I make my bed neatly and then change into a tank top and a pair of my brother's old PJ pants. Then I crawl into my bed and under my clean sheets, snuggling in to try and at least get a few hours of sleep before having to get up for school.

Luck seems to be with me tonight and before I know it my alarm is waking me up instead of my mother's drunk stumbling around the house into the wee hours of the morning. Even though I just woke up, I can feel my temples pounding loudly in my ears, the start of an exhaustion-induced headache taking hold. I peer to the side of my bed, looking at the clock which is informing me that it is six-thirty in the morning.

Fucking hell in a hand basket. I wish I could just sleep even a little longer. But I know that isn’t going to be able to happen.

I swat at my alarm, which was set to radio mode might I add, and was now singing a very annoying boy band pop song in my ear. Finally, I make contact with the thing. Sadly, I miss the button to turn off the music.

After about three more attempts I finally hit the button and my alarm stops. I sigh, trying but failing to blow some of my wild, bed head hair, out of my face. Of course, no luck there. I press my fingers into my temples, hoping to stop the headache before it gets worse, but I know that is too much to ask of my poor body.

I sit up and throw my legs over the side of my bed. Standing up and stumbling, sleepily, to my en-suite bathroom to take a shower.

I turn on the warm water and wait for it to actually heat up before stepping under it. I make a sound of appreciation as the hot water runs down my body. Of course, I don't have time to simply stand there and enjoy it. I quickly do what needs to be done and then I turn the water off. My headache, which had been feeling a little better under the stream of water, was coming in again at full force.

Using a fluffy towel to dry myself off, I pad my way over to my mirror so that I can brush my hair. Tugging at the wild, knotting strands with my brush is like fighting a wild animal. Trying to 'tame the beast' I call hair. Let me tell you, it is definitely not as easy as it sounds. So, for about ten minutes I simply try to tackle my hair into cooperation. After those ten minutes though, I give up and just decide it’s a messy bun kind of day.

I exit my bathroom and head to my closet, immensely glad that my high school has uniforms at times like this. I don’t like having to piece together outfits for the day. Though after donning the knee length skirt, white button up, and the school regulated cardigan sweater, I also grab jeans and a plain T-shirt for work after school. I slide on my worn out sneakers, grabbing my jacket and start trying to locate my book bag.

I search for about ten minutes before finding it half shoved under my bed. I hold in another sigh, in agitation this time, as I pull my book bag onto my shoulder and head out into the hall.

When I get downstairs a few moments later, I still haven't seen hide nor hair of my mother, which is very unusual, as she is normally wandering the house. Though with one glance at my watch, I shrug my mother's where-about's to the back of my mind. I grab a banana before I rush out of the house, almost forgetting to grab the keys to said house in my rush to leave.

I close the door and lock it carefully before making my way down my driveway. I know the house won't stay locked throughout the day, but one can always hope my mother will stay put quietly at home until I come home.

When I get to the sidewalk, I start to head to the most monotonous place to spend my time.

High school.

The parking lot is almost completely full when I walk through the large metal gates of the school.

My peers are littering the large school lawn on campus, everyone is grouped together with their friends. I barely spare the groups a glance though as I walk right on through, hoping to get to my locker with relative ease.

Sisalli Academy prides itself on being an escalator preparatory and partial boarding school for the rich and elite. Usually. On odd occasions they have students like me, who are smart enough to earn partial scholarships to attend the Academy. Luckily, it covers a good chunk of the giant price tag on their tuition, and my father is more than happy to pay the rest of the tuition fees. He can brag that his daughter is attending the Academy to all his colleagues at work now.

Many children of rich families come from all over the country to attend this school. Which is where the partial boarding comes into play. The Academy has dorms of course, not required but offered to those who would have no other way to attend the school otherwise. They're extremely expensive to live in, not that the grand majority of my peers here are worried about their money. Considering the Academy also has its own helicopter pad, I wasn’t going to judge it too much on the exorbitantly priced living quarters.

As far as I am aware, I am one of the only attendees whose living situations were less than stellar. Not that I could afford to try to dorm here and leave my parents clutches. Even with my father’s hefty paycheques.

I hear my name mentioned as I pass by a few groups of students sitting under the row of trees by the walkway to the entrance of the school. It’s easy enough to ignore as it’s nothing new and I don’t even look their way as I pass. I don’t have a reason to interfere in the gossip, it would probably just make it worse anyways if I did try. So, it’s better to just leave it alone to fade out naturally.

I walk into the main school building, which houses the lockers and the arts and humanities classes. The sciences and laboratories were housed in the building adjacent to this one, making it a fairly easy trip between the two. Thankfully.

I get to my locker without much difficulty and slide my bag and homework for my afternoon classes into it before grabbing my homework and books for the morning blocks. I make my way to the science building and to my biology class.

I get a few jeers as I pass some of my more vocal harassers, but it’s nothing that I can’t handle. At least this time no one pretends to bump into me to make my books fall.

Getting to the class, I look at the clock on my phone and see that I am only a few minutes early and yet the room is almost deserted. I shrug and go to my assigned desk at the front corner of the room and sort through my homework to get out what I need to hand in at the beginning of class.

“Morning,” I hear the mumbled greeting of William, my seat and lab partner, as he sits down beside me only a minute after I arrive.

“Morning,” I respond in kind, not desiring to be rude to someone though I don’t initiate further conversation either. William also doesn’t try to talk to me anymore and turns in his seat to talk to his two friends situated behind us.

As the minutes tick down to the start of class more and more people file into the classroom. Soon enough the bell rings and the teacher appears, closing the door behind him as he comes in.

He gets Emmaline, one of my classmates in several of my math and science courses, to collect everyone’s completed homework before he starts teaching us. I diligently take notes and listen to his lesson for the hour.

Calculus and Chemistry also go by in a similar fashion and soon enough it’s noon and it’s the lunch hour.

Sisalli Academy has a double lunch system. There are two different lunch periods, one from eleven to noon, and one from noon to one. This ensures that there is enough space in the cafeteria for all the students as well as staggers the crowds of students out of class.

I avoid the rush and stack my books together carefully before leaving the room myself. Leaving the science building and heading back to my locker in the main building, I see a lot of people leaving the school grounds to go to some of the fast-food restaurants in the strip mall only a few minutes away from the school.

I put my books in my locker and pull my wallet out of my bookbag. Luckily, my mother wasn’t aware that my father sent me an allowance monthly which supported buying lunch from school and any small expenses that might pop up. Though he was adamant that the money only be used on things related to school. If I want anything extra it requires me to pay for it myself, including most of the groceries for my mother and me. My mother doesn’t know about the existence of the bank card that my father sends the money to, which is a good thing considering if she did, I would be broke almost instantly.

I close my locker and start to make my way to the cafeteria, scrolling through my phone as I walk. Suddenly, as I am about to exit the main building and head to the dinning hall, I’m pushed quite violently into the wall.

I bump my shoulder into the thick stone wall of the building and I steady myself before falling to the floor and glance up.

I see the back of Megan and some of her friends as they laugh at me and walk off. As if nothing happened. I sigh feeling another oncoming headache, even though I avoided the worst of the one this morning, but I ignore it and get myself lunch.

One of the perks of going to a school for rich kids, they don’t skimp on the lunches.

The dining hall is set up like a buffet and you pay a small entrance fee to be allowed to eat anything your heart desires for the lunch hour. Unless you’re a boarder, in which case you get a meal plan with your student card. Not that it applies to me. And all the food offered is made well and tastes amazing. Not anything like what one of my coworkers who attends the public high school in town claims the cafeteria at her school is like.

After collecting an assortment of different foods for my meal, I find an empty spot at one of the tables. The people sitting a few seats down from me don’t spare me a glance as I start eating, and I also don’t mind them. I prefer it this way.

Sitting happily in my own silence.