The Misfortunes of Lolita

03 | when lolita looked

THIS IS AN UNEDITED AND SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT VERSION OF THE MISFORTUNES OF LOLITA. I AM PUBLISHING IT IN FALL 2021—PLEASE FOLLOW ME ON IG @/ls.akhter and GOODREADS (L AKHTER) TO STAY UPDATED. I am so excited to share TMoL with you again.

CHAPTER 3

"I am happy and sad at the same time-but it mostly feels like nothing at all."
-Lolita's writingjournal

When Frank woke up the next morning, he knew something was wrong.

It was just the air. It was stifling, for some reason, and when he woke up, he couldn't smell the bacon that was usually frying in the kitchen. There was barely any smell at all, except for the smell of the cheap beer that always came with his father.

Frank closed his eyes.

Back in Chicago, Cora was there with them. But now, Cora was in college, living away from home, and he'd have to console his mother alone. He'd have to watch her cry as she'd try to bring his father back to consciousness, and he'd have to force himself to not talk, not yell.

"Shit," He muttered. "Shit."

Usually, their father would leave early evening, and come back early morning, stumbling fucking drunk. On really bad days, he wouldn't come home for a while. Days.

It hadn't always been like this, though. No. When they got married after high school, his parents were happy. His father had just found work, and his mother was still trying to get into drama school. They had drive.

But his mother said that after Cora was born, things changed.

"Because," She'd said. "I wasn't enough. So he picked another muse. He picked drunkenness over me."

And that was partly the high school musical lead in his mother talking, but he'd learned over the years that although his mother's words were always covered in shiny wrappings, they were laced with truth, through and through.

He got up out of his bed, knowing exactly what to do.

He'd be late to school today.

---

When Frank walked inside his Biology class, Lolita had sat down in her seat, her eyes focused on the book in front of her like she was trying to pretend that nothing else existed.

Frank was wondering when he'd do it. When he'd become a normal seventeen year old with normal parents and a normal girlfriend. When he'd move out and go to college, like Cora. When he'd stand up to his incompetent dad, have a real nice talk about his bullshit.

This morning, when he came out of his bedroom, he saw that his mother had been crying because she couldn't hold up his father alone. He kept slipping away from her fingers, nearly falling to the ground, half unconscious and making incoherent noises. Frank had stormed in and held him up, taking him inside the master bedroom with his mother.

When his father had collapsed onto the bed, his mother had leaned into Frank, sobbing so profusely that he hadn't heard at first what she was muttering.

"I'm sorry," She was saying. "So sorry, Frank."

Frank, being Frank, had said nothing to console her.

He thought two things.

One: he missed his sister, he missed all three of them carrying their father in. Sharing the weight.

Two: no matter how much they would try, they'd never be able to hold their father up. He would always manage to make them all fall on their face.

"Hi," Lolita whispered.