Chapter 6, Subtle

After saying my goodbyes, or whatever it was that I did, I leave the school.

I still didn't find my keys, but that's fine. I'm sure Mom will cut me a new set anyway. I feel so hungry. I didn't eat much today and barely kept hydrated. I could collapse the second I get home.

While walking home, the sun is still high in the sky. The shadows along the buildings have switched their orientation as the sun's arc changes in the sky. The mid-day orange glue seems to envelop the entire landscape. And its glow is situated my way as I walk along the street to home.

There's a lot of traffic starting to pick up at this time, I guess most people's jobs clock-out times would be around 4:30 to 5 P.M. I wonder if Dad is home already, but I'm doubtful he is.

As I'm walking home, I don't think too deeply about the details of the surrounding area, I've seen the same scenery so often that it's not very interesting to me. I do take note of a home that's about five minutes from my place though, Me and Austin would steal crab apples from their backyard and throw them at oncoming traffic for fun. Sometimes we'd eat the apples too.

Nothing else interesting catches my eye though.

It feels like I've been hit with a burst of exhaustion, I keep my eyes closed for the most part on the walk home, hoping that I'll teleport to my bed somehow.

Bed.

Right, I had a weird dream this morning. I don't think it really matters anymore though; I can't help but have this nagging feeling in my core that I'm forgetting something very important.

After making it home, I enter through a backstreet behind my place. There are a few interconnected homes, or duplexes. I'll just say it like it is, they're the projects. Low-income homes were made for low-income people like our family. Not that I think that's a bad thing, Mom always said that we weren't rich, but we were rich on love. I believe it, the amount of effort she's put into raising me and Thea, and her husband as well. Because I can say for certain that he wasn't a part of the child-rearing portion of the family.

There could be a tinge of resentment for him because of it, but things like anger towards a parent won't help me to progress and flourish in my own life and make my own family someday. Probably, I'm just trying not to think about big problems while on a journey to my bed.

When I finally make it to the wooden fence behind the house, I tip-toe to see above the planks of wood and unlock the metal locking mechanism. It's not a real lock, it looks like one of those keys that come with spam. Just a hook that anchors into a metal ring.

When I placed my hands on the top of the wooden plank, I got a splinter stuck in my right-hand ring finger. Gross, I hate foreign objects inside me.

That sounded worse than it needed to be.

Opening the door, I'm met with a densely covered cement pathway. It's covered in overgrown weeds; the whole backyard is overgrown. You can't see much besides grey blocks of cement underneath green blades of grass.

We have a basement window on the house, and while looking through the grass, you can narrowly see the glint of the glass reflecting the blue sky above me.

The backyard is ugly, there's a porch at the end of the pathway, but I wouldn't call it a porch either. It's just a few planks of wood that go up 2 steps to the door.

I wanna fix this up, maybe cut the grass and make it presentable. I should've done this a long time ago, one of the kitchen windows is looking into the backyard, I don't know why we look at this unattractive yard when we eat our supper. Mom would probably appreciate it being arranged more neatly.

After contemplating the way I'll fix the yard, I finally walk up the steps to the home and enter through the backdoor.

Upon entering the kitchen, the basement door is immediately in my view, with a small shoe closet to the right of me. There are a few old sweaters and jackets hung up on hangers in the closet and old shoes that Mom hasn't thrown out. There's a small rug in front of the door, one of Mom's additions to the home. She used to yell at me and Thea for always tracking in mud, she'd make us stand at the door stomping our feet on the rug for at least 5 minutes when we were kids.

It probably wasn't actually five minutes, being children, you think things take longer than they actually do.

I take off my shoes and place them together away from the doorway, before heading into the kitchen.

Walking into the kitchen, Mom is sitting at the dinner table, or breakfast table depending on the time of day, and is smoking a cigarette while drinking coffee. I look at our counters; they've got a fake plastic tile texture meant to simulate marble. The coffee pot is at 2 out of 12 cups, Mom's usually the only one drinking coffee, and its routine for her to make eight cups at a time. That's a lot of coffee to be drinking alone.

She looks up at me while writing something on a notepad:

"Oh, hey sonny. You're actually home for once?" She asks while looking up at me before taking a drag from her cigarette and expecting an answer from me.

"Yeah, I was actually playing chess with a few friends at school so I'm a little late to being home today, Mom." I say while placing my bag in the corner of the kitchen.

"Chess?" She asks in an exasperated tone.

"I forgot you and your grandpa used to play that back at the old house, that's right." She says while smiling.

Oh, so that's why it felt familiar. Now that I think about it, I never liked playing with him. He'd yell at me when I'd play bad moves and say things like "I already taught you this."

I'm glad we moved out of there when Thea was born, but I always hated being dropped off with them when Mom or dad was busy.

Mom says she's just about to leave to grab supper, I say thank you and walk past her to the living room.

The refrigerator is beside the doorway to the living room, and I'm making an executive decision to ignore it right now, I'm hungry, but I'm more tired than anything.

Dad is in the living room watching the news; he looks up after taking a drink from his beer.

"Hey kid, you're home for once?" He asks while downing his beer after opening his mouth to speak.

I look at the coffee table beside him on our brown couches and see 2 other beers. He's already on his third and it's not even 5 o'clock yet.

I don't say anything to him and try to continue walking up the stairs to sleep.

"You're normally out messing around with your friends or hanging out at Austin's place right now, You still dating that one girl from school?" He says in a genuine parental tone, but he burps and covers his mouth afterward.

"Oh, right. Yeah, I'm tired today Dad. I'm gonna break it off with that girl too." I say, completely forgetting my girlfriend, who should be important to me.

"Well." He says with a sigh of relief.

"I never liked that girl anyway; she'd call you at any time of the day making you run around or do things for her. She liked stirring the pot with you too, even just last night you looked like you were stressing out before bed. She seemed to like to get a reaction out of you." He says happily, maybe happy is the wrong word. He sounds like he's happy for me.

Conversations between family usually overstep boundaries, I know he wants to look out for me, and it's warranted. That girl's attitude this morning was shitty.

After saying I'm going to take a nap to him, I walk up the stairs and feel a cold shudder in my bones, remembering there are quite a few text messages to me that have been left unanswered or even looked at by me.

I make my way to my bedroom upstairs; Dad yelled that Mom was gonna grab something to eat later. Mom already told me that, but he never listens to her when she says anything.

After making it into my room, it feels like it was dirtier this morning. I recall there being cups of half-finished drinks by the bed and along my dresser. After removing my sweaty socks, I lay down on the bed. The sheet smells freshly cleaned; Mom really goes out of her way for us. But I've got to take care of my own chores, I'll start after my nap. Probably, no procrastinating now, Danny. I've got 2 pillows on the bed, but I know I only ever use one. My big favorite pillow.

Before going to sleep, I'm gonna close my curtains.

After darkening my room, I take my phone out of my pocket while laying on my back and unlock it and see that there are 3 missed calls and 19 missed texts.

Fuck, guess I'll look at these first.

I press the against the middle button of my Blackberry to navigate the different screens, I should really get a smartphone.

Tap tap tap, I make it to the message screen.

I notice the contact names and immediately see the perpetrator of all the missed calls and texts.

"My love <3" is their name in my contacts, gross. That's a gross name. < p>

She must really need my attention, I'll read through them, I guess.

3:45 P.M.: "I was just kidding, but you're really pissing me off. You're acting like my ex now. Or you might as well just be my ex now."

3:19 P.M. "If you don't want to date me just say so, say anything. You're probably fucking someone else right now. Tell that bitch she can have you and that I'll fuck her up."

3:15 P.M "I'm sorry for acting like I didn't care about you, okay, I do"

2:17 P.M "I hate talking to myself like this, you know that :/"

1:05 P.M. "fuck just ruined my whole lunch, I was just trying to eat with you."

There are 5 new texts between twelve and one. in order from newest to last:

"I'll wait for u behind the school." "where are you?" "It's okay, I'm eating with Micheal anyway..." "You're making me mad." "why the fuck won't you text me?"

11:06 A.M., during chemistry class: "What the fuck was that about?"

9:18 A.M. "Can you go buy me some stuff from that one Vanessa woman?"

Yikes, there are a few texts from last night where I reply and talk with her. I'm curious what we were talking about.

Me: 10:30 P.M: "No like I said I don't do that, I'm just trying to go to bed. I literally told you I'm at home.

Sarah: 10:29 P.M.: "I bet you're hanging out with some girls right now. That's why you didn't text me back."

Sarah: 9:43 P.M: "k."

Me: 9:06 P.M. "Alright, I'm gonna play some games for a bit so I'll text u later."

Sarah: 9:06 P.M. "Don't forget to bring some money with you tomorrow, I wanna grab some weed and fresh rolls from that one Chinese place."

Man, I don't wanna read this crap no more. The backlight of the screen is the only thing illuminating my room right now and my eyes are heavy enough as it is. I'm gonna break it off with her and go to bed.

Why did I even let someone like her into my life?

After deleting the "My love <3" contact from my list, I send her a text. < p>

"Hey sorry to do this over text, I'm breaking up with you. If you want to know why I'm breaking up with you, read your last few texts." Send.

I toss my phone across from my bed, out of sight, out of mind. I feel relieved, and the fatigue is starting to settle in. I don't think too much of her as a person, maybe I did at some point. I'm sure I did a lot of things.

It's warm in my room, the weather is still fair during September. I feel like a big cozy burrito after wrapping myself up in my blanket and hugging it. It smells clean too. I keep my eyes open for a bit, staring at the white wall against my bed.

Thinking about the day, nobody really likes me. The teachers and school staff treated me poorly; besides Mr. Radek and Ms. Simmons, it feels like I've really burnt bridges with everyone else. Even making new friends felt wrong. It felt wrong to be in their circle, as my close friends are all degenerates and they all seemed to have some genuine friendship with one another. But it felt nice, I think they're nice anyway.

Before I continue thinking about today's struggles, I'm asleep.

I begin to dream of a figure. A silhouette of a person, illuminating a dark landscape behind them. They're walking towards me. I feel a sense of dread, there's no sound. Everything is dark. I'm looking forward to the figure. At the mercy of the dull light it emits, to see a disfigured hand stretch toward me. I don't want to be touched by it, but I can't move. And just like that, as though I greatly offended the figure. They begin to walk away from me.

I'm left feeling confused, and have a sense of familiarity with it, with them. As I watch them evaporate into the distance, the darkness dissipates. I'm looking through half-closed eyelids at my ceiling.

It feels like I was only asleep for a second. But I feel another's gaze on me.

Lurking in the corner of the room, after shutting the door behind it, I hear a voice let out:

"Your mom let me in." The figure of a girl looks me up and down, brows furrowed and almost huffing with anger.

It's Sarah. Her tone of voice sounds sinister like she's unhinged. There's a definite crack in her character, the room is dark. The outdoor light has changed from an orange hue to a light blue. The sun must have just set.

Well, this is probably my fault. She starts walking to my bed. Stepping on a controller for my Xbox, before looking down and kicking it out of the way.

She walks up to my bed, towering above it and looking at me with a deranged look in her eyes. She's gazing toward me, her eyes narrowed with a piercing stare. She's breathing in through her nose and out of her mouth, probably to calm her spite before she speaks.

"What do you mean, that you are breaking up with me?" She takes out her phone to see me the text I'd sent her and several more that she'd sent to me after I fell asleep.

I look at her up and down and notice the headphones she'd been listening to music out of this morning still hung around her neck. Her small hands are shaking as she's showing me her phone. As if I'm going to say that it wasn't me, maybe?

Does she think I'm going to back down on my message to her just because she shows up at my house? How delusional can a person be?

"Yeah, I sent that text. What about it?" I say while trying to stand up from my bed, but as I do, she throws her phone at me. It hits me in the shoulder and lands safely on my bed.

Her voice cracks as she screams.

"After ALL I've done for you?" She screams. Her hands were opened and quickly ball up in frustration. It's like this confrontation heightened my senses or something. She smells like cigarettes and vodka.

She definitely likes to play the victim, it's only a breakup. I doubt we're even that close.

Sarah composes herself for a second, she un-balls her fists and closes her eyes before sucking in air through her nostrils and exhaling out of her mouth.

There's silence in the room for a moment as she looks for something to say. I'm waiting for insults to roll in and can't help but feel really thirsty. I just woke up, and I've got a post-nap headache.

"Okay, I think I know why you're mad at me." She says in a cheery tone and brings her right hand to her chest, just above where I imagine her heart is, if she's got one.

"It's because we haven't been having sex, isn't it? You know I told you I don't like having sex with you, right?" She says while taking off her thin sweater and placing it beside the bed.

What the hell's she talking about? The thought of being intimate with her is gross.

If she tried not being such an asshole, I'd probably be inclined to want to be with her, there's nothing wrong with her physically, but her personality is something she should work on though. Alone.

Why did I ever date her? She's a manipulative piece of crap. I don't even care about sex, but just thinking that she withholds it because there's something wrong with me makes me feel undervalued.

She removes a scrunchy, or something from her wrist and begins to put her hair in a ponytail.

She begins to say sweetly:

"Okay, how about we calm down about this whole break-up thing? You can do whatever you want to me, and I'll do all the things I know you just love." She says while smiling while licking her glossy and pink lips. She crawls on the bed, inching her wait towards me while crawling on all fours.

I am calm, I feel a sense of clarity today, maybe more than I ever have.

I'm honestly just done with this whole situation; I don't care to find out what I like her doing. This whole situation feels like it's from a bad romcom or some shit.

I motion my hand in front of me to stop, then say:

"First of all, is the thing I like you doing fucking off? Because I know that's what I want more than anything else right now." I look at her with a deadpan stare, she's almost made it entirely on top of me while I'm laying on the bed still.

My shoulder hurts from her throwing her phone at me.

I maneuver my legs around her and sit up, before standing up and walking to the door and saying in a serious tone.

"I don't know what you're trying to do here, but like I said I just want to break up. I don't want to be with you, I don't want to have sex or whatever. And today with you bombarding my phone like a fucking psycho and being hyper-aggressive while trying to manipulate me into staying with you is fucked up. You need some help, but not from me. Try seeing a therapist or some shit, or don't. Not my problem." I open the door to my room.

"Now, kindly get the fuck out," I say while trying to imitate the smile she looked at me with.

She's sat on the edge of the bed, her legs dangling to the ground. They can't quite reach the floor, she's not a very tall person.

As she's sitting there, I see the forlorn shadow of a girl who looks like she's about to cry. I doubt it's because we're breaking up, she probably just feels embarrassed.

I turn on the light switch above my dresser and see this girl in a long-sleeved grey sweater with an open V-neck pattern. She instinctively grabs her long brunette hair and starts running her fingers through it.

There's a part of me that feels a little guilty, but not really. I try to lighten the mood.

"It's not sex or anything. It's our compatibility, I don't feel like we should be together and we'll both be happier when we don't have anything to do with each other." I say in a consoling tone of voice, I turn away from her and look into the hallway of the home outside my bedroom door.

She quickly picks up her sweater from the ground and puts it on, then walks past me and pushes me slightly to get out of the room. However, she stops at the door for a second, before turning back to me and raising her hand. And in one quick jerking moment, she slaps me across the face. It caught me off guard, I swear I saw stars for a moment in my vision.

She didn't knock me out, I looked back at her after regaining my balance to see her side profile.

Her lips silently spoke the words.

"You said you loved me." Her voice again cracked, in anger and frustration. Like she wants to scream at me but can't find the justification for her own actions.

"And nothing you do deserves that," I say back to her in the next moment, my stature feels much larger than hers. If that makes sense.

I look down at her, the light in the hallway is off and I can see her shadow walk towards the stairs. As she finally leaves my home, she slams the door on her way out.

Honestly, this is better for everyone. I know there will probably be repercussions to this, she's such a dramatic person. I don't know why she'd bother to argue against my breakup with her when she doesn't even like me as a person.

I'll never understand people who enjoy drama.

The tension that was in the air while she was here dies down, and I notice my sister peek her head out of the door at the end of the hall.

I can barely see her green hair through the red-colored lightbulb she has in her room, it's illuminating the dark hallway. She only peaks her head out the door and says in a rude tone:

"The fuck was that all about?" while opening the door further to reveal her and a few friends sitting around on her bed texting on their phones.

I just smile and wave, I cope with traumatic events with humor.

"Well, there goes your sister-in-law, sorry for taking your big sis away from you," I say laughing at my own joke.

She makes a gagging sound.

"Yuck, big sis? You're fucking stupid." After she speaks she puts her hand over her mouth and feigns nausea.

She probably heard the entire argument, her and her friends. That's fine, I don't think I was wrong in doing what I did. I handled it as best as I could after being rudely awoken, I still feel a bit shaken up actually.

I walk to my bed and put my phone in my pocket and notice 4 new text messages from the time I went to sleep and when I was woken up.

Well, I'm still hungry, and thirsty. I'm gonna go eat, mom should be home by now. Didn't Sarah mention that my mom let her in?

As I leave my room and into the hallway, Mom is walking up the stairs. Heh, she looks small when she's on the second-highest step.

"Danny, what the hell was that." She says while looking up at me from the staircase, her hand held onto the rail and her eyes wide.

"Just an argument, or no. She was upset I was breaking up with her." I say while divulging the details of what happened in the room and how she was being crazy texting me over and over again today.

Mom laughs at the drama and says:

"Ahh kids are funny, I thought you cheated on her or something with how mad she says," Mom says while unlatching her hand from the rail and holding her hip with the hand.

"Thought you were trying to act like your dad back in the day." She says while laughing. I personally don't think that statement is funny.

"I never fucking cheated on you!" Dad yells from downstairs, he sounds drunk.

"Shaddap and drink your beer!" Mom yells back.

Thea walks out of her room and asks.

"So, why'd you break up with her." She yells at me from across the hall.

"I already told Mom, so I'm not repeating myself," I yell back.

"Why'd she slam my fucking door is what I wanna know," Mom says that as though it's the most important thing right now.

What about your son's emotional turmoil, ma?

"You probably won't get another girlfriend since you're ugly," Thea says while laughing and closing her bedroom door.

I hear the cackling of her and her little friends.

Someone should punch her. I should do it, that's an older brother's duty. I know I won't though. Stupid kid anyway.

Mom turns from me and starts walking downstairs.

"Well, whatever the problem was, there's pizza downstairs. Cooking in the heat makes me lightheaded and I'm tired already. I did all the laundry and I'm gonna watch my show." She says after walking into the living room and begins telling Dad she's gonna watch TV so he's shit out of luck for the living room.

I follow behind, I can feel my spine through my stomach, I gotta fill the void inside me with food.

I walk past my parents sitting on the couch in the living room and overhear the news, I stop to listen.

A woman TV anchor begins talking, the channel is local.

"Tonight, in what appears to be a series of killings has claimed another victim. Between the hours of 1 and 3 a.m. last night, a young man in his early 20s, Kayden Isaacs was walking home from a pub on River Street, not knowing that this walk would be his last. The police have given us a statement regarding the murder, let's go to that now." She says before cutting to a large police officer standing behind a pendulum with a microphone attached to it.

"The main priority is public safety, and this person will be found. We will hunt this person down until we find them. I will be personally heading this investigation..." and then I stopped listening.

Never really cared for the news, it's all so grim. There's never anything important that's reported on. I mean a serial killer is pretty important. But there's nothing happy. Maybe people enjoy hearing about human suffering. There's always something awful that's happening in the world, like homes being burnt down. It was like, less than a hundred years ago that we still watched public executions. Maybe there's some connection there, or I'm thinking too deeply into it.

I don't get the appeal of news outlets selling sadness.

Mom says that she's worried because that's close to our house, but we live in a poorer part of town, she should be more worried about the guy a few houses down who's selling crack.

Don't know why I remembered that out of nowhere.

Whatever, I waddle my way to the kitchen, the room is dimly lit by the range hood's light above the oven, on top of it is a cardboard box with 2 pieces of pizza left for me. How thoughtful of Thea not to give it to her stupid friends like she usually does.

I down 2 large cups of water first and keep the tap running to hear water running. It's calming to hear the faucet run and the water splash against the metal interior of the kitchen sink.

Afterward, I down the pizza in what could only be described as one gulp.

When I'm finished eating, I stand in the kitchen and wonder if not eating well could've contributed to my inability to gain weight.

I scurry my way back upstairs, my parents didn't say anything to me, but I noted that Dad was on his 6th drink already.

It's weird that Dad didn't mention Sarah at all, or it's normal that he's not able to offer emotional support. I'm not a very emotional person myself, and honestly, I don't really feel any sadness or regret for breaking up with her.

After walking into my room, I think to myself that I need to take a shower and be hygienic, smelling Eli earlier today grossed me out. Can't be a smelly boy, now.

I'll do that in a bit though.

I jump into my bed, kick off my pants, and lay on the bed in my boxers in the dark.

I twist my body off the edge of my bed to my pants and grab my phone.

The light of the phone illuminates my face, and I see the notifications of messages.

I go to delete them and don't bother reading them, don't need that negativity in my life.

I begin scrolling through Facebook, it looks awful in the web browser version I'm using. Don't matter, I see I got a friend request.

Charlie Scofield, I gotta click accept.

I'm just gonna scroll my timeline.

There are some memes posted by my friends, some dude named "Tyler "IDGAF" Howe" posted a meme about cheeseburgers and cats. Nice.

Continuing scrolling, there's one of my mom's friends who added me that shared a post. It says: "Repost if you love God, continue scrolling if you're the devil's child." And she added a caption that says "AMEN". Damn, poor lady is having her beliefs exploited by some dude for internet clout. After looking through the original post, there's a lot of grandmas commenting on it. Muriels, Carolines and Eleanors. I don't know, those names just stand out as being from a different time.

I've had enough of my phone though, I stink. I need that shower bro.

I waddle my sorry ass to the bathroom and maneuver my way through the millions of different hair and skin products my dear sister has thrown around haphazardly in the bathroom and remove my clothes. I turn on the shower and set the temperature to below scalding, well at least for me it's below scalding. Some would say it's lukewarm.

Before hopping in the shower, I strike a pose to myself in the bathroom mirror. I don't really have much muscle tone, but I like to believe that I'm strong anyway. I laugh at the live laugh poop poster one more time and hop in. I know I took a shower this morning, but naps make me sweat and feel gross inside.

The water feels good on my bones. While showering, I imagine overthrowing the government and having fake conversations with people in my head. I could've said something else to Austin when he said I pissed myself earlier. I also could've broken the news to Sarah better.

Nothing I can do about it now though.

After my shower, I dry my body off and put on the same clothes I was wearing before I jumped in the shower. It makes me feel wrong inside, I should've grabbed some clothes before I ran in. Thinking ahead isn't my strong suit.

After I'm done in the bathroom, I play some CoD for a bit. I get my ass kicked in online multiplayer and then get called every slur in the book by my teammates. Maybe this isn't the best form of stress relief, it just stressed me out more. But, like a vicious cycle, I can't get off the game after a loss. I waste about 2 hours of my time mindlessly drowning out the thoughts in my head. It's about 10 pm by the time I'm done.

Afterward, I turn off my 360 and head downstairs to grab a drink then go pass the fuck out.

Dad's asleep on the couch, he's sleeping sitting up. There are nine beers beside him on the coffee table. That's a lot to be drinking, old man.

When he snores, it sounds like a log being cut by a nearby manual saw with a dull blade. I pick up his cans and take them to our recycling, there's a precious like, 50 cents here.

We just throw our recycling under the kitchen sink, and mom takes them to the recycling facility when there are too many or the smell of rotting beer becomes overpowering.

I enter the kitchen, it's dark out now. There's an orange glow that's emitted from the kitchen window from a streetlight outside, and the kitchen is dimly lit by the range hood's light.

On that note, Mom is still in the kitchen. Her face is all scrunched up as she's sitting at the kitchen table writing things down on a notepad and mumbling to herself. She's probably doing her budgeting for the month. I'm sure she's had countless nights like this, nights we've taken for granted our continued life of comfort. While I and Thea were sleeping blissfully unaware of her stresses, she was wondering how we'd make it to Dad's next paycheck.

Living paycheck to paycheck is financially unhealthy. I'm old enough now to understand that there's more that I should be doing around the house.

"Hey, mom," I say to her in a non-threatening tone while standing behind her. She hasn't looked up from her notepad since I walked into the kitchen and didn't wanna spook her.

"Oh, hey sonny." She turns to me; her eyes are bloodshot and the bags under her eyes are drooping downwards.

"Hey Mom, so I was thinking. How about I get a job to help with things around the house?" I say before turning my back from her and grabbing a glass from the cabinet for some water.

"Oh, you don't have to. I'm happy if you just stay in school and graduate. I never got to graduate..." She says before turning her eyes to the kitchen window.

"It'll be fine Mom; I can do both. I'll ask Vanessa if I can work part-time at the store tomorrow." While giving her a cheery smile, doing my best to comfort her. Like she's always done for us.

"Well, I can't stop you if you want a job, Danny. You're at the age where you'll need your own money for the things you really want." She says while tapping her pen against her paper, the ink making little blotches along the looseleaf.

"Oh no, I don't really need anything. I just wanna help you out, mom." I say while pouring myself some water and downing it in a few gulps.

"Help? Like, help me with bills?" She says before turning her head to me and I can now see her eyes are widened just a bit.

"Yeah, I wanna help. I'm not a boy anymore, I can do a lot more than just play video games. And I did just have a breakup, it'd help me to get my mind off it." I don't really think too much about the breakup though.

"Right, well if that's what you want then I don't have a problem with it." She closes her notebook and places it at the edge of the table before asking me to grab her smokes from on top of the fridge.

After I pass them to her, I say goodnight, and she says it back.

Upon entering my room, I plug my phone into my charger and text Austin if he still wants to go to that party on Friday, he replies "Do bears shit in the woods?". What's a roundabout way of saying yes.