Just Like Something New CH 1+2

Chapters 1 and 2. Mostly just back story.

Winter kind of sucks, you know? Like, yeah, there’s that fresh snowfall, the Christmas kind, the kind you see falling down in front of those Hallmark houses with all their pretty white lights illuminating the powder, that crap. Whatever happened to colored lights? Why did we decide that those were tacky and stupid? I feel the white lights are just arrogant, like we’re telling nature, “f**k, we can light up the darkest part of the year! Look at our memorial to middle class where we raise our children! They go to private school in our Lexus’!” I think if we’re going to put up lights at night, the least we can do is make them unnatural and purple and red and blue.

            Regardless, this wasn’t that kind of snow. This was slushed down from the sky with a heavy thunk. That soft sound of the world when in snows? Gone. Replaced by the sound of tires ripping off of the wet pavement, probably on their way to the nearest department store to pick up some trashbags or paper towels or condoms, whatever the hell it is people drive through that kind of weather at night to pick up.

            Most of them didn’t even notice me walking down the street. I don’t blame them, I wouldn’t have noticed me either, it was dark as hell. And my coat is pretty dark, and it doesn’t really stick out that much. It’s the kinda coat that makes you seem like that kinda guy you don’t even care to know anything about. I’m fine with that, it was the whole point of the walk.

            I was going to get food, you know? I was hungry, and there was nothing at home to eat, and Mom wouldn’t be home for another hour or so and Dad wouldn’t care if I were home or gone or hungry or dead, and I didn’t care where he was either. I’m sure Mom did, but like I said, Mom was at work. So I walked into town to get some food. I ain’t spoiled, man, I can take a little walk through the cold. It wasn’t even that cold, it was kinda nice. Except, like I said, the snow, which was really slush. That kinda soaked me after a couple minutes, but I wasn’t too worried. Like I said, I’m not spoiled, I can rough it a little bit. I’m not some freak who purposely ignores what he’s been given, either. I did wear my warmest coat, but it’s not like I’m going to call a taxi just ‘cause I need a snack.

            You ever notice how every car on the road in bad weather looks like it’s struggling to get home? Everyone drives like they are on a dangerous journey, and that coming home will be the biggest joy in their life and they would give anything to just be home right then. It’s funny that it takes bullshit snow plodding down from the heavens to make people realize that the 15 minutes they save driving their tin can 60 miles an hour past other tin cans isn’t worth their lives. That’s stupid as hell, right?

            But people are stupid as hell, and I guess I’m stupid as hell, at least that’s what I figured because I can’t seem to get most things right and every time I want to try I can’t even find the guts to take any action. I think I’m a slacker, but it doesn’t feel like a bad thing, you know? Like, I really, really don’t do a lot of work. In anything. But sometimes I’ll have some motivation, but it’s almost always not directed at what it should be. Like, if I have a huge project due, I’ll convince myself that I should watch all the episodes of whatever TV show and then I’ll do my work. Or talk myself into walking out into a snowstorm just to grab a burger or something instead of waiting the 10 minutes for my Mom to come home.

            I don’t even really know what slacker really means. I mean, I’m too young to have real habits, right? I always hear people say, “When I was your age…” and tell me all the stupid s**t that they used to do. I mean I’m like that, right? I just like having those stories, those “Well, What I did…” stories that show that you’ve actually done something with my life. That’s gotta add up to something, right? I mean, if I really am following the wrong path, shouldn’t life have given me a hint or something? Like, shouldn’t I have been expelled from school, looking at a life of poverty in the face and showing up to work at the pizza and sub shop every day at 6? The worst I’ve gotten is a couple small suspensions and a bunch of talking-to’s, but my grades aren’t that bad and I still have friends and s**t.

Sure, my grades could be better, but what’s the point? So I can go to a better college? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter what college you go to, you just have to graduate. I don’t even really want to go to college. I have no idea what I want to do with my life, and then college would just be like regular school, me showing up to classes and not doing my homework.

I can’t see myself being a college kid. I might live in a s****y apartment but I wouldn’t be too upset about it. I’d be one of those kids without any real furniture, with the mattress on the floor with one sheet and the carpet a mess with newspapers and clothes. There’d be, like, 3 other people living in it, couple of buddies and maybe one of their girlfriends and every night they’d sit around and watch a movie or listen to music or something and just chill. They’d be enjoying that one time in their life where they don’t have any money and that’s not a problem. I feel like that’s my time. I feel like everyone has a time, that age they were born for, and that after college before career thing, that’s my time.

Something else I hate, since 6^th grade all my teachers have told me, “You’re going to have to do your homework or you’ll never succeed in ‘whichever grade succeeds this one.’” You know what? Outside of the 2 or 3 weeks I spend at the beginning of the year convincing myself that I’m going to turn it all around, I don’t do any work. And I never do. And you know what? Every year I pass, and every year I move on. Why are they always just preparing me for the next year? When am I going to learn for everything in my real life?

I feel like I should be practicing something, you know, getting better at something. I feel like you can spend 4 hours teaching me something and it would mean nothing compared to 10 minutes of me doing something. I only learn anything because I do it. I guess I’m stupid like that.

Anyway, so I walked down the main road, the one that comes right off the one I live on, and there’s a handful of cars driving slowly into town and I’m just plodding along listening to music and enjoying the cold. It was that uncomfortable cold that reminds you just how freezing you are every time you move. You can feel the senses drain from your hands, and there’s that constant battle trying to warm them up. I was fine with it though, because I knew once I got inside the warmth would embrace me and coddle me and reward me for walking all this way.

I swear I wasn’t thinking about her, even though I did realize I was walking in the direction of her house. I mean, I was walking to the center of town, and there’s no other way for me to go. But I wasn’t thinking about her. I was just thinking I was hungry and I would enjoy a walk through this weather, specifically because it was such weather. I never said I wasn’t a weird kid.

I didn’t even like her you know. I just went out with her because I felt kind of bad for her. She was sweet, and always tried to help people, but she never seemed to hang on to any friends. I figured she needed someone she could talk to, and because I don’t have a lot of hang ups and s**t, I’d be glad to hear what she has to say. We didn’t have to do the ol’ boyfriend-girlfriend s**t, which I kinda liked. We could just hang out with each other. That weird girl with that stoned out slacker kid. Two people no one really cared about outside of the roles they fit in everyone’s social circle. It made sense for all of them, we were on the outside and harmless, so now we could be harmless together.

I’ve gotta stop painting myself in this “Iconic Hero” thing. I’m not a hero. I’ve thought about it a lot. I’m not even a main character, I’m a role player in other people’s stories. Everyone likes to think of themselves as super special, some moral protagonist who living out some local legend. I’m not a legend, I’m not even a cautionary tale. I’m just that guy who might run into the main guy once or twice. I could even have been her side kick. The guy who at least listened. I don’t have the ideals to be a hero.

I feel like I’m going to find a way to sell out later in life, at the same time convincing myself that I haven’t. I think it’s the only way this is going to work. Because I have to sell out, I don’t have any dreams to follow except for a desire to follow only my dreams. That’s fucked up when you think about it. But I’ll probably be some talking head, telling kids that they can do anything they want while secretly making sure that’s not possible. If we could be anything we want when we grow up then there’d be a lot more dinosaurs and at least a couple Batmans. Now we just have a bunch of a******s.  And don’t get me wrong, I’m going to be one of those a******s. I already am one of those a******s, considering all the s**t I’ve been given and all the complaining I do.

I don’t want to get into that right now. I was walking into town, which just so happens to be on the way to her house, and I keep seeing the Christmas light houses and car’s uneasily sliding home and all I can think about is that Saturday. It wasn’t a big deal, but it kinda was becoming a big deal because of how I handle situations like that, which is to say not well. It’s why I’ve never been good in relationships, because I hate having to deal with real issues, especially if it involves confronting myself. I never said I wasn’t a coward. I actually take no real shame in admitting it, it’s that much of a truth. But, I mean, I really should have done something better then.

It wasn’t a huge deal, my friends were just making fun of her a little bit, how she didn’t really hang out with them at all, how she never really said much when she did. They made me feel weird for liking her, like all the weird stuff about her that I thought I liked now really was weird, and I was weird because of it. I say I’m weird all the time, but when it was actually said to me, meant about me, it hurt. And so when my stupid friends made fun of her to her face, I should have stopped them. But they were just playing around and she shouldn’t have taken it serious anyway.

Regardless, she ran away. Now, see here’s where I should have stepped up and went after her. Even my stupid friends said so. But I didn’t. I never do, and I doubt I ever will. Sure, I can envision myself doing it, being the proud man who swoops in and saves her, but that will never be me. I’m an a*****e. Always have been, always will be.

I should have done it for her. I should have at least done it so she could have someone chase after her, tell her that everything’s ok and that they’re just a******s and that what they say means nothing compared to what she is. I should have stood up for the way she backs out of social situations at odd times, the way she disappears when things really start to pick up only to find her a couple hours later just walking around the block or back home reading a book or watching tv. I should have defended the way she can’t keep eye contact when someone challenges her, or how her voice gets weak because she feels weak when someone intimidates her. She only really needed someone to defend her every once in a while because that was something she wasn’t really good at. We’re all bad at certain things that other people are pretty good at, and yeah, she probably could have learned to be more assertive but why did it have to be then? Did she really need to be told that I’m too weak to stand up to my friends, even when I know they’re just being idiots?

I think the worst part is that she could never look at me the same way, you know? It wasn’t a bad way, like she didn’t go to immediately hating me, but something was lost. Like, she used to look at me as though I was something to look up to, just for being me being with her. No one does that to me. Not my parents, not my friends, not even my brother, but she used to. I told her I was nothing special, not directly but I always talked about how out of place I felt and how weird I make everything, and I was just talking about it but she would listen. Not like this now, I mean, you have to listen and all. She wanted to. And she never tried to fix anything, and I liked that because I hate how everything always has to be fixed all the time and we can never just be, never just hang it all out there with all our problems and faults and weirdness. God, I sound like such a jerk.

You ever feel like you want to cry but just hate it out of you? Like, all of a sudden you feel so worthless and miserable you just want to give up, but your own hatred of crying wills you to hate away the tears? I think that’s how I treat most of my emotions. I’ve just convinced myself that I know so little about anything that I have no right to feel any way about anything. You know? You probably don’t, but whatever. Forget it.

I’m sorry for putting on this whole self-loathing thing, I really don’t mean to sound like such a whiney little jerk, but, I mean, come on, I just feel better talking this way. Not better, because it doesn’t make me any happier, but it feels a little better when I don’t have to hide it all because I’m hiding it all most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, I still have times when I’m not thinking like this, but when I am there’s no one to talk to about it because the second I start everyone crowds around looking to fix it, and then I feel like a problem and I don’t want to cause a problem. It’s just s**t, you know? S**t that everyone deals with all the time. I just linger on it too much. I could focus on the better stuff now, but you don’t want that, and I figure I might as well keep doing this cause I’ve already been going on for so long now.

Anyway she ran away and I felt s****y again, but I had to hang out with my buddies because I didn’t want them to see me running after some girl. I mean, girls come and go, but these are my buddies and, even when they’re a******s I need them to be around because I need someone. I didn’t want it to be a them vs her situation but that’s what it was and I figured that I’d made that decision. I was sticking with them, but I still felt like s**t.

I feel like life does that to you a lot, it throws you into these no win situations and your stuck making a decision you shouldn’t be making. You should be able to keep your friends and girlfriend at the same time but it never happens. Like, when Pete was going with that Allison girl, we didn’t see him for months, and when we did it was always like it was his responsibility to humor us with his presence. Maybe I was just a little cynical, but it always felt like he wasn’t there because he wanted to be but because either Allison was out of town or he felt that he just hadn’t hung out with us for a while. Don’t get me wrong, I still liked having the kid around, and it always felt great when we would get back into our little group and it was the full group. I feel like that happens less and less nowadays and it just kinda sucks, you know? We still have fun when we hang out together, but we used to do it all the time. Now every time feels like a planned event and it all comes off as a little phony.

            Listen, I’m getting pretty tired right now. I know I didn’t really get to what you wanted me to get to, but I can’t really do that right now, my head hurts, and we can do it next time, right? I mean, it’s not like there’s anything else I’m going to be doing anytime soon, right? I think I just need to lie down and take a nap for a little bit, rest up. I’ll do better next time.

2

            I can’t wait for the summer nights where the thunder rolls in the distance and the air is so thick with humidity is sticks to the lining of your throat. I miss the nights where that thunder shook me, startled my insides primal and sent me huddling under the covers of my parent’s bed, shivering with fear and anticipation. I miss knowing it’s not only about to rain, but that we are mere seconds from the sky’s opening up and god drowning me in lukewarm droplets the size of golf balls. I miss running home barefoot in those same raindrops, unable to see more than 20 feet in front of me but cackling wildly over the constant clash of water on pavement. I look forward to the day I can sink my bare feet into the increasingly muddy grass, splatter the contents of the soil behind me as I dash for the safety of home. I miss toweling off, and laughing, and watching the world flood.

            I don’t know, it just hit me, you know? All of that. And it sucks, you know? ‘Cause that’s not even really that great, but to me, at least for now, it’s the only thing I want and I know that’s stupid because there’s a lot of things I know I can’t control, least of all the weather. See, that’s what I thinks’ wrong with me, at least what everyone sees is wrong with me when they look at me, but are either too afraid to say anything or don’t know exactly what it is. But they see it in me, because there are times, like when I was sitting in my room yesterday thinking about the rain and stuff, where I’m just no good at hiding it. I try to hide it, I really do, because I hate being someone else’s problem.

            Do you miss the summer? I miss the summer. Not all the time, sometimes I really like the winter, and the fall can be nice, and spring is just a lot of energy and I love the spring, but I never miss any of those other seasons. I look forward to them, I long for spring by the end of winter, but I never miss them. I think it’s because the older you get, summer just disappears. When I was a little kid and I didn’t know anything, which I still don’t but I know more at least, but when I was a little kid and I didn’t know anything the summer was this great big anything. I spent days lying on my back just watching clouds and following ants and s**t.

            I know you want me to get back to what I was talking about last time, I can see it on your face. And I know, I’m free to talk about anything I want and all that, but you want me to talk about something otherwise I wouldn’t be here. But, as long as I’m here, I’m gonna talk about whatever I want to talk about because I just don’t care anymore, alright? So I’m sorry if you had other expectations, but today I want to talk about this.

            You know what I was saying about summer disappearing? Like, you don’t get to run in the mud during a downpour. You probably did, and occasionally you probably have to, like when you’re having a picnic with your family or something and the sky just opens up and all of a sudden you’re running through the park to get back to the car. But I’m talking about waiting for the rain, or just not caring. Like, you’re walking down the street, and you can feel its about to pour, but you don’t care so you kinda wait around ‘till it hits then you get to run home in the rain. But as you get older you have shoes you can’t get wet, and places to go at night so you can’t ruin your shirt, and what if you run into someone and they start to think you’re an idiot for getting caught in the rain.

            I remember this time, when I was a little kid, maybe 5^th grade or something, and I was waiting after school for my mom to come pick me up after work. I went to one of those private schools, all boys, everyone wearing colored shirts and stuff. It’s kinda weird to think about it, because just the thought of dressing a bunch of 5^th graders up in a dress code seems off, like we gotta make the kids look good. That just seems strange looking back at it, but I guess I’m a strange person anyway, and I was strange then anyway.

            Anyway, it was pouring rain outside, and my mom was running late, and it was getting dark but it wasn’t that cold. There were a couple kids waiting around in the lunchroom, where they held the afterschool session, but I didn’t really want to be around those kids that day. Nothing wrong with the kids, I just didn’t want to have to talk and be friendly and put on that whole persona that you have to, even at that age, to interact with people. I’m not saying I never want to do that, or I don’t like doing that, but sometimes it does wear on me a little bit.

            Whatever. I don’t mean to sound so antisocial, but whatever. So, I thought I saw my Mom’s car so I went outside thinking she’d be there. Turns out it wasn’t her car, but someone else’s, but I had already signed out and everything and I guess it was the embarrassment of admitting I was wrong or just because I didn’t want to hang around that table anymore that I just sat out there in the rain for like 20 minutes until my Mom finally showed up. I actually stood under one of the gutters because it was kinda like standing under a light waterfall, it was raining that much, and there was also this porch light that shined down on me like a spotlight.

            When my Mom finally showed up she must have been a little freaked about the whole thing but I didn’t notice. I just told her that I wanted to stand in the rain for a little bit. I mean, I was soaked. Shirt, shoes, socks, everything, and I just sat there in the car in my usual silence on the way home. It was one of the first times that I realized that I couldn’t just tell my parents something simple like, “I just wanted to stand in the rain” because that wasn’t a good enough response. I can’t remember exactly the time that I realized it was better to just make something up in that situation, because they would at least accept a full story.

            That doesn’t really have anything to do with my whole mess, though. I mean, I guess that is my whole mess, but it’s not the mess I’m here for and all that. I’m here ‘cause I threw that rock and broke that window and everyone thought I was deranged and dangerous. Everyone still thinks I’m deranged and dangerous. You know what? I’ve never actually hurt anyone. Not once, at least not intentionally. I mean, there are those times when I was playing sports and stuff where I hurt a kid, but, I mean, if I didn’t hurt whoever then whoever was gonna hurt me so I did what I had to do. And that’s just the nature of sports. I’ve never even thrown a punch at someone.

            You know what’s the worst part about everyone thinking your dangerous? Everyone avoids you. Even your friends. Even people who you were just friendly with, like not real friends but you were nice to each other. Those kids start to treat you like plague. It’s their parents. Parents blacklist kids. Mine did it all the time, only I didn’t really know it at the time. There were certain kids I would tell my parents I was hanging out with some days and they would tense up and start asking questions like, “why’d you decide to hang out with him today?” They didn’t drag it out, or accuse him, but the reaction wasn’t the usual “hey, that’s great, you were playing with someone” I normally got. You could feel the concern, like some 8 year old on the playground is going to scar me for life with drugs and delinquency. The whole situation would make me feel uneasy, and then I would feel uneasy if I ever hung out with that kid, if I ever did. If I did I certainly wouldn’t tell my parents.

            But I became that kid after that rock. That kid you can’t take home after school, the kid you can’t tell your parents you were hanging around with. The uppity kids, those kids who never once got in trouble, the ones who never took a stupid risk or learned how to get yelled at, they were the worst. It’s not that they avoided me, they didn’t. It’s that, when they saw me, they would shoot me a look, like “how could you be so stupid?”

            Well I don’t know. I didn’t know then and I don’t know now. Like I said, it wasn’t like I planned anything happening that night, I was just going for a walk to get some food. I had my coat on and I was just stuck in this rut and s**t just happened. I don’t even know why I walked by her house.

            It stood there like every other house on that street. It was a pretty big house, one of those houses with a bunch of rooms that no one really uses but look really nice. My house used to be like that before we moved. We had a dinning room, but ate in the kitchen. We had two living rooms, but no one ever used the one that didn’t have the TV in it. It was one of those houses where you would have days where you didn’t even see the other people living in the same house.

            I could see this big chandelier in her front hall, through the window above the front door. It was this big mess of crystals and distorted, redirected light. It looked like this big furry creature dangling from the ceiling. I guess furry might not be the word, like I wasn’t hallucinating, it was kinda pretend. Like, I was thinking, “what if it were really furry?”

            I’d been kicking this rock for a while now. It’s something I do all the time when I’m walking by myself. I used to play soccer you know. Back when I was a little kid, my Dad would take me on Saturday mornings to these little soccer leagues for little kids. Rec soccer. It was just a bunch of near toddlers running around after a ball trying vaguely to put the ball in the goal. It must have been boring to watch, because thinking back on it you could never know what was actually happening. Both teams would just swarm around the ball and move in these scrums until, by chance, the ball ended up in one of the little nets.

            So I have this habit of kicking things down the street when I’m walking by myself, and I’m not sure if it’s because of those days playing soccer or because I just like kicking things, but anyway that’s why I had the rock in the first place. It was one of those perfect rocks for throwing, a little smaller than a baseball and about the same weight. Nothing sharp or rough on it to cut your finger. I think that’s why I was kicking down the street in the first place.

            So I get out in front of her house there, and I’m staring at the window with the chandelier in it and I guess I subconsciously picked up the rock or something because I was just playing with it in my hands. I don’t know, it wasn’t even mad or angry or pissed off or anything. I wasn’t even really feeling anything, but all of a sudden I just thought it would be, I don’t know, something if I could put it through that window. I don’t want to say satisfying, because then I would sound like a psychopath and it really wasn’t that. It was more that I knew I shouldn’t do it, that I knew there was no reason to do it but I still could do it. I don’t know.

            The weirdest part was that I just stood there after I did it. I remember cocking my arm back and throwing it. I remember watching it fly through the air and the sound of broken tension in the window and the trinkle of the pieces as they fell to the floor and the stirring in the house and the front door opening up. Mr. Jorgensen was heated. That was their last name, Jorgensen. Stacy Jorgenson. It always made me laugh, like it couldn’t be a real name or anything. I don’t know, it just sounded funny is all, like it came out of a cartoon.

            Mr. Jorgenson was pissed, I mean pissed. He came flying out of the house over to me screaming s**t like “You f*****g little punk you’d better not run or I will beat you senseless,” and “What the hell is your stupid little head thinking, just wait for the police to see this.” I really should have bolted, but I couldn’t go anywhere. I just sat there, dazed and stupid as this big, pissed off bear of a man made a bee-line for me.

He had strong hands, the kind of hands that look too big to be actual hands, like he was wearing gloves. You know that feeling when an adult grabs your by the arm and you realize just how powerful strength can be? The only other person whose ever done it to me was my father, and that was when I was a kid and he had just had enough of the noise and the commotion and all that s**t little kids do, and he would just grab onto my arm and shake my body around to face him. There’s nothing you can do about it. You’re beat.

So Mr. Jorgenson grabs me by the arm and he starts shaking me, telling me how he cannot wait for the cops to get there and teach a punk like me how the real world works, and how if he ever sees me even look at his daughter with my perverted little gaze he would do what my father had probably wished to do every day. And the whole time I’m just giving him this look because I wanted to keep eye contact and show him I wasn’t scared, when really I was terrified as it was just starting to hit me what I had done.

I saw Mrs. Jorgenson take Stacy and her little brother back into the house as Mr. Jorgenson pulled out his phone and called the police. I didn’t try to struggle or anything because I knew I wasn’t going anywhere, and also because I still wasn’t really sure I’d done anything wrong. The whole act was so impulsive, and I really didn’t put any thought into it, that I thought I didn’t really do it. I don’t know, this will sound really stupid, but I thought the cops would come and realize that it wasn’t really me who had thrown the rock, just some random thought that had bubbled over and taken control for a bit while I watched.

Mr. Jorgenson must have been freezing because he was only in a t-shirt and pajama pants and it was cold as hell out there, but I think he didn’t want to take me inside because he didn’t want to subject his family to me. Either that or he didn’t want his family to hear the language he was using, because I’ve never been called so many s****y things in my life. Something like that sticks with you, you know? Like, you could blow the whole thing over as just him saying whatever came to mind and he didn’t really mean it, which Mrs. Jorgenson said to my Mom on the phone, but I don’t know. He could just be saying what most people are thinking about me, but because of the circumstances he wasn’t in the right of mind to put of those barriers and he just spoke the truth. I know it’s stupid for me to think that, but some part of me can’t stop seeing what he said as being the only time anyone’s ever been really honest with me.

You know what happened after that, the cops came and they took me to the station where my mom had to pick me up, and she came straight from work and was furious. Then there was the whole deal where Mr. Jorgenson wanted to press charges but his wife talked him out of it if we promised to pay for the window and I apologized and promised never to talk to his daughter again. And I got suspended from school for 2 weeks, and the school said that that plus all the work I’d already missed, not to mention the crappy quality of the work that I had done, meant that I was going to have to stay back, which just made my parents even more pissed. And I had to go to court and everything, which just seemed ridiculous because they weren’t pressing charges, so really it was just so I could get yelled at again, but this time by a judge who went through all the ways I could have been fucked.

So I spent the next 2 months just sitting in my room trying not to get yelled at and trying not to do anything. I just sat in my room and listened to music a lot and thought about how I’d fucked over a lot of s**t. I never blamed her; I didn’t even really blame myself. I blamed my subconscious. I felt like the whole mess was just proof that deep down I was just a f**k up, and that all my life was just this battle to keep people from seeing the real me. My parents debated sending me to places like this, and making me see people like you, but they didn’t have the money and they just kinda hoped the whole mess would go away I guess. It’s amazing how little we saw each other considering I spent that whole time in the house.

Anyway, I guess that’s why I left. I mean, I obviously didn’t leave right away. First I had to stay to see if they were gonna press charges, then I had to stay for court, then I just stayed. I never really thought about going anywhere, and I’m still not sure that was the reason I left, I mean, the punishment and all. I really should have been punished. That was a stupid thing I did. But I guess I left because of all those things I was feeling about myself at the time, and the fact that I was just sick of being reminded of all that and the only way I could think of getting away from all that was to literally just pack up and go.

I shouldn’t have taken Mom’s money, I still feel terrible about that. I’d always known she kept a bunch of “rainy day money” in that shoebox in the trunk in her room. Very rarely would I sneak in there and grab, like, ten dollars to buy a pizza or something. One time I took a twenty just because I didn’t have any money at the time. I carried it around for weeks. I had nothing to spend it on.

I was spending so much time around the house that one day I went over to see if it was still there, which of course it was, and to see how much was in it, which was $352. I didn’t think I was going to go anywhere. I thought I’d just take it and go get some lunch. I mean, it was nice out by this time, not too nice but getting nice. Nice enough to ride your bike into town to get a sandwich or something. But I didn’t get a sandwich, I got that bus ticket, and before I even knew what I was doing I was off to New Hampshire.

I really gotta go. This whole thing’s been tough, and I just really don’t want to talk anymore. It might be helping, I don’t know. I’m just beat right now. If you don’t mind I’d like to get back to this some other day, I promise. Is it okay if I do that? Thanks.

Author's Note

Ignore Grammar for the most part

Reviews

[Prateeksha Khot]

Thar was quite an interesting start. Kept me engrossed till the end. Cant wait till you put up the remaining chapters. However I felt- And it it my own opinion- that the chapters were a bit long. However, feel free to ignore the opinion.
Great work. Keep up and Keep updating soon. Hope to read more of the book in the near future.