Flames

seven

For twelve minutes and thirty-five seconds I had been pushing the up and down button of the massive, brown recliner, over and over.  An action movie was playing on the flat screen TV, but I was too busy thinking about the note that laid on my lap to even focus on anything else.

With only three hours of forced sleep last night, I had woken up at around four am, and had been awake since.

Dad was passed out in his room; probably about to wake up and go do whatever he did before going to drink more at the bar. It was pretty usual for him to wake-up early to go to the bathroom, eat and then go drink for an endless cycle of getting drunk with his “friends”.

I, on the other hand, was still freaking out about the piece of paper that Louis dropped as I tried to talk to Mia. I really wanted to thank her for what she did but then I found the note, and I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. The crumbled piece of paper was haunting me, keeping my mind in a clutter and making me feel uneasy.

Apart of me believed that he had it because he would use it against me some way or another, but a small part of me also wanted to believe that he still cared, and after all the endless fighting and insulting each other, he still hadn’t forgotten about me. Of course that was my heart speaking, and as always, my mind had the upper hand in all my thoughts and actions.

I didn’t know how to act toward the note, but I was anxious to do something about it, even if I still didn’t know what to do.

“Argh,” my father’s groan was heard from the hallway of the house, his loud, heavy footsteps getting closer towards the living room where I currently was. Once he was in view, I rolled my eyes at his appearance. His black shirt was stained with watermarks, which probably came from slobber and spilling his drink. His pants hanged low and were just as stained, if not more, than the shirt itself. His hair was a mess, completely ruffled and spiking in different directions; his unshaved beard completing the look of a homeless person.

It was such a contraction to the nice, big house we lived in, but the house was a cover-up for our family and friends, a costume to hide the wreckage that my father was, and the barren I felt to be most of the time.

“I’m leaving,” he said, whilst I only kept quiet, pushing the button of the recliner with my left hand while my right held the note tightly. 

Once he was out the door and probably on a taxi to who-knows-where, I lifted myself up from the seat to go get dressed for school. Although I wanted to just stay home and pout about everything and anything, I wanted to find out more about the note, like it was my life’s mission to do so, and maybe it was. Maybe talking to Louis, or investigating the reason why he had the note with him would change everything, and honestly, that excited me a bit, even though there could be a possibility that it might turn out for the worst.

After getting dressed in jeans and a plain white V-neck, I placed my shoulder-length hair into a pony tail, the tail being rather small and chunky, but I didn’t care about what it looked, I just wanted my hair out of my face. 

As I drove to school, I couldn’t help but go slower than usual, not only because we only lived a couple blocks away from the building and I was already early as it was, but because I was kind of dreading the idea of being closer to Louis after the note. I wanted to get answers, but it meant having to interact with him, and it never ended well or civilized when it happened.

When I reached the school, I parked on the usual spot and turned off the car, except I didn’t leave the vehicle, instead, I brought down the seat into more of a decline and closed my eyes to gather my thoughts more thoroughly. I wanted to prepare myself for whatever I was going to do today, and if it meant having to talk to Louis, then I had to think of what I was going to say or do.