Chapter three; Monday blues

The next morning is a total daze. My alarm goes off too late, and I roll out of bed only to find out that school starts in just forty minutes.

Just my luck.

I throw on a shirt, walk skid into the kitchen, armed with a glass of orange juice and cereal. I’m exhausted after spending the entire night chatting back and forth with Erin. I was too smiley while talking to her to sleep or even worry about how shitty I’d feel in the morning so I guess this whole fatigue thing is my own fault. It was totally worth it though.

I speed-eat my breakfast and milk and cereal go flying everywhere and I’m sure I look like the breakfast equivalent of the Cookie Monster. I glance across the table where my dad’s sitting with his breakfast of toast and eggs.

He’s not meeting my gaze or so much as acknowledging my presence in the slightest. Dark circles rim his eyes and even from where I’m sitting I can see the faint bloodshot tone to them.

He’s been drinking again, I can tell.

I can’t stand to look at him anymore. His stoic posture is an insult to mom’s memory. She was always so full of life and I could recall more than one case where she had been teasing me about how she was going to become a hipster and ‘follow the teenage trends’.

I had laughed at her then and made fun of the insane poses she did with some equally insane looking plastic glasses. She had looked like a complete idiot, but she had no shame about it. And that’s what I miss – how she was her own person.

I regret taking her for granted. I regret how I had just assumed she’d be there for me when I wake up in the morning, thinking she’d always be home cooking dinner for me and humming Elvis songs to herself since according to her “Elvis is a god”.

I wish I could tell her how much I miss her.

After a while dad looks up from his breakfast plate and glares at me. I sigh a little, pushing away the memories of mom before turning my attention back to him. I don’t want to look at him, but I don’t have the energy to fight it.

“Going to school?” Dad says, scowling

“Yes, dad. It’s Monday. That’s what normal people do on Mondays. They go to school. Or work”, I add. I can’t stand him, can’t stand how he ignores me and what he did to mom and how he doesn’t even seem to care.

“Are you trying to say something about me?” he asks as he leaves the table and moves to the living room.

“No”, I say, standup from the table. “Of course not”

He glares at me, but I ignore him. “I told you, I can’t get a job because I’m busy”

“I can see that”, I say. “That TV has been keeping you busy for the past many months”

He has no answer. ‘Well I’m off to do something productive with my life. You should consider doing the same” I say, then grab my backpack and walk out the door.

It’s not that he’s abusive. He’s never laid a hand on me, and he most certain isn’t ever going to. He barely yells at me. He’s just in the background, a bitter nonfactor in my life. Sometimes I think his lack of care is worse than fighting. Fighting, at least, means I still matter to him.

Not caring doesn’t.

I finally make it to school. It’s a small school really with two floors that are each divided up by subjects and with a minuscule gym sitting behind the first. It’s not a bad school and the kids are mostly nice even though I don’t connect with them.

It’s still too early to function beyond sleep-zombie status as I yawn and make my way down to my locker. I can see Lexi staring at her locker – she has probably forgotten her combination again.

Lexi must have heard me coming and when she sees me, she grins and says “Happy Monday” with fake enthusiasm and gives a small pump of her first. She is annoyingly awake and chipper.

I grimace, “Fun times”

There are still a few minutes before class, so I scroll over to my vlog page. No new messages from Erin. My heart sinks.

“Well I got to go to math class. Talk later?” she says.

I mumble something along the line of “sure” without looking up.

It’s not until minutes before my last class that I find something new from Erin and by the looks of it, she’s online in our chat room. I grin a little as I start typing.

I nod even though she can’t see me and then I noticed what time it is. My stomach drops. Oh shit. I’m a minute late to class already. I type a reply in a complete rush while grabbing my bag and hurry to class while wondering all the way what Erin wanted to talk to me about