AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Today was a good day.
My mood started to plummet as the apartment came into view. There were four apartment buildings that bordered the parking lot. All the same ugly brown color. The paint was peeling, trim was popping, hard water built up on the first-floor windows from when they used to water the grass. If the stairs to the second story had been wood, they would have been rotting through. Thankfully, they were steel.
I crossed the tracks and got through the thicket of trees the town was named after. Passed the maintenance shed, theplayground, and then scanned the parking lot for his truck. I didn’t see it, which was a plus, but mom’s old white Honda was parked in its usual spot, so she was home.
I wasn’t sure which was worse these days.
I trudged up the stairs that led to the second floor and stared at our apartment, number4A. The door was unlocked like it always was, inviting fuck all into this place. Opening the door, I was hit with an unpleasant smell.
Mom was sick again.
I could hear her heaving the contents of her stomach up in the bathroom. Setting my backpack down, I filled a McDonalds to-go cup up with water from the tap and headed down the hall. Her head was hung and a hand covered her face. She was pale, with red-rimmed eyes and severely cracked lips. Her hair was graying, and she looked older than her thirty years.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she hissed before snatching the cup out of my hands, the water sloshing everywhere.
I didn’t take offense to her words anymore. She was in a constant state of hatred toward me nowadays, and I was numb to it.
Since dad died, I was only a pest to her. A responsibility she didn’t want.
She used to be beautiful. Both my parents had black hair. I got my curls and my green eyes from my dad. I didn’t know what I got from her. I didn’t really think we looked alike. She had brown eyes and her hair was thin and flat.
That was why she didn’t like to look at me though. I think the older I got the more she could see Dad in me. Maybe she’d started to see me as a real human and not her meal ticket.
“Need anything?” I asked, keeping my distance as she clung to the wall to get to her bed.
Blankets were hung over her windows, casting a red hue into the room. Her light bulbs had burned out months ago, but she’d never bothered changing them. Trash accumulated on her dresser and bedside table. I grabbed a sack from the floor andstarted to pick up what I could of the trash, tucking the half-empty water bottles under my arm.
I could just leave it, but then one of them would use the mess as an excuse to call me in to clean it in front of them. So, I tried to stay ahead of them, picking up their trash, cleaning the kitchen, bathroom, and living room the best that I could without cleaning products.
They didn’t like to spend their money on what they deemed unnecessary. Just cigarettes, booze, drugs for Kevin, and the occasional takeout.
Mom crawled into bed, groaning about her headache and the nausea that she was plagued with. I told her she should go to the doctor, but she refused.
Nothing good comes from doctors.
So instead, she would suffer with no solution in sight.
Whatever, I didn’t care. If she died my life would be better off. If she died, there would be no one to claim me. I could go off and be forgotten.
I’d tried leaving this hellhole before but was dragged back kicking and screaming every time. I was deemed a runaway. Anytime I had tried to leave, they had my face and name on a list and would just bring me back. No law enforcement took me seriously, and it wasn’t because of what I did.
It was because I lived in Poverty Flats.
“Get out,” she moaned from her bed as I went round to the other side. I glanced to the floor, where the blanket I had pinned with clothespins had fallen onto the baseboard heater.
I set down the makeshift garbage bag and went about re-pinning the blanket.
The last thing we needed was this place to go up in flames.
I left her room, closing the door behind me.
I cleaned up their mess in the kitchen the best I could with what I had: hot water and an old sponge. I dried and stacked what dishes we did have, refilled the water bottles with tapwater and arranged them in the fridge, noting the Sharpie dots I had put on some.
I took my backpack to my room, leaving my door open. If I closed it, they would take it off the hinges, so it stayed open. I tucked my new backpack under my bed. If they found it, it would be another thing for her to destroy. I pulled my pajamas out from under my pillow and laid them on my chair. In my closet, I moved an old box to the side and pulled out the tiny shampoo bottles I had stolen from the high school girls locker room, placing the bottles on my pajamas.
I wasn’t allowed to use her shampoo or bodywash.
Crawling onto my bed, I opened the curtains and stared outside. Clouds were rolling in, and I hoped it would rain.
