You of all people - Stosuh

Peace of mind - Stephen

It was broken down the side and chipped after I had hurled it onto the cement as hard as I could. I had picked it up again and held it over my head before throwing it down once more.. Nobody wants the real truth. The lens had cracked into dozens of shards, but only a little section of the camera's body had come off.

And now it was once again held before me. "I see you got rid of her camera." Dad noted as he walked into the kitchen. He was holding it carefully in his hands as though it mattered. It looked sad in a way, the broken lens I mean. His eyes were staring at it before he looked to me for some kind of answer, but when it wasn't granted he quietly sat down at the table and had placed her camera off to the side. It was dreary outside, raining actually.

Packets of vegetable seeds sat on the window sill, covered in dirt and wilted at the edges. Our entire kitchen was wilted. There sat a few tiles in the corner of the room that were cracked along and eventually picked out but never put back. The cabinets were chipping off slightly, their ugly wooden interior now shown to the outside.

I stared at them, avoiding his eyes. The cabinets' natural wooden interior were seen as imperfect. So they had a cover put over them of a more acceptable color. White.

A padded envelope was put down in front of me, with thick handwriting bearing the name of Stephen Ng. "Your uncle found some more of her things. He's currently putting together crates of things to bring down here for us. Her things from their storage unit, I mean. But these are one of the smaller things that he thought you might want while waiting for the.. More important stuff?" He asked as though it was a question.

He seemed uncomfortable. And he looked kind of sweaty, but that might've just been the hair that was sticking to his forehead, seeing as he had just come back from the rain. He studied me, both of us staring into each other. I followed his eyes as he stared me up and down. I don't know what he was expecting from me honestly. "Thanks." I mumbled, pushing myself up from the kitchen table and walking away briskly. I could hear him call behind me, but I didn't bother to turn around.

* * *

I couldn't seem to stay awake. Which was unlucky, seeing as I had at least an hour or so before I had to meet up with this mystery friend of Dan's, and teach him some basic math or something like that. If I said no in the first place, then I wouldn't have to worry about meeting up with somebody and accidentally falling asleep. But it's my fault that I stayed up last night.

I was already having trouble falling asleep, and instead of taking one of the sleeping pills my dad had gotten for me I decided that it would be better to go crash at Jay's house and drink soda all night while we played video games. He seemed happy that I had gone over though, which was good.

Jay and I decided that instead of raising hell that night, we would just do some simple things together and hang out instead of running through people's backyards screaming and using the light sabers at the local 24 hour Walmart to have a sword fight.

His parents were out on yet another business trip, like they usually were. Both of us deemed the empty house perfect for a huge party, but we never held any parties because we rathered each other's company instead. His parents knew that so they didn't care if they brought him along on the business trips or not, because they knew the worst we could do would be accidentally breaking the sink or punching a hole in the ceiling. Not that that happened. Often, at least.

Sitting in the bathroom, Jay was re-dying my hair. I had deemed Jay my personal hairdresser from 4th grade, where he had taken a blade to my scalp at one of our sleep-overs. But I had actually ended up enjoying the way he made my hair, so now it was kind of my signature look. We were just finishing up, him drying my hair as I sat on a stool we had dragged upstairs, sitting in front of the mirror and watching as my once faded lilac hair was now a bright neon. He put the dryer down and placed his hands on my shoulders, leaning over towards the mirror.

"It looks great." I commented, in a monotone voice. But that was how I always spoke nowadays. Jay smiled though and ruffled my hair with his hands. "Video games?" He asked me as he took off his gloves, that were supposed to be for washing dishes. Not for dying hair. Placing them in the sink, as I took my smock off and placed that in the sink as well. I nodded and got up, wearing a white shirt which we only used for when he would do my hair. The collar around the shirt was dyed bright purple, and my arms and pants were also sprinkled with blots of purple.

While he went to the kitchen, I had cleaned the gloves in the sink with some cold water, as well as the smock before hanging it on a hook in the shower to drip.

We later ended up playing video games, screaming song lyrics off-key and making our voices crack on purpose, blending mystery drinks and forcing one another to drink whatever we had made the other. It was hard to say whether these kinds of things we did together were healthy, but we had fun in the end so that was all that mattered.

What also mattered was the aftermath of it, and that even collapsing on my bed and sleeping for an hour or two, I was still a walking corpse. My phone kept buzzing, and I didn't check it, and I could hear my father's voice downstairs. It sounded like he was on the phone. We had a house phone, located in each of the different rooms of our house.

One in the kitchen, one in the living room, one in the hallway that was right beside the bathroom, one in the office upstairs, that hasn't been cleaned in awhile, seeing as mom never got to it. Speaking of which she hasn't been in there in awhile, I ought to go in there and go through her things for her. Clean it up. Today wouldn't be that day though.

* * *

The day was overcast, windy. It was probably only a little bit warmer than fifty outside, and the town was quiet. Our town was never very active from september throughout winter, and when spring started it was also pretty quiet. But then when summer would come, everybody seemed to flee to our city for vacation. It was hard to name if our town was more of a city or a quaint little destination for boring people. One side of the spectrum had houses and a park and little stores, the natural friend groups who would flock together for coffee and to hang out, and the other side was big buildings and loud honking cars and billboards.

The only thing separating the two sides from each other was some bridges and overhead highways, large street lamps and a wide river that you could barely see across, and bordering each side of us was a large ocean. Alongside with the bridge was a boardwalk, with big rides and food stands right before you got to the beach. It was usually set up around spring time, so when Summer would come around it would be ready for business, but some of the things would stay up.

Like the fun house or the toy stands, usually just locked up with a key or a large built in metal respiration that could be pulled down and locked from the outside. Kind of like a storage unit. But the funhouse inside would get fully shut down, and they would cover the mirrors in curtains and stack some boxes full of packing peanuts in there. I'd know because Jay had dared me to break into there. But for young couples who would come for the season of summer, it was a the perfect little place for a vacation, with lots of places to go hang out or to take your significant other out on a date to.

That's where I was passing by now. People passed by it often, but paid no mind to it when it was shut down. It looked sad and broken. The big seal statue that stood, watching over all the rides and stands. It was shedding away it's layer of paint on skin little by little, and it's eyes just looked straight up creepy.

I decided to pay attention to it no longer as I finally made my way to main street. It was much busier here than anywhere else in town. It wasn't like there were people at every corner though. There were some people walking around the streets though, and a girl leaving some craft shop. Some boys hanging out by one of the corner stores, seemly trading baseball equipment, and at the far end of the road was a small cafe. Hooray. The next source of my dread, having to spend two hours doing math with some mystery person.

Though they weren't a mystery anymore. They sat at the far back corner with a drink in front of them which they weren't even touching. Their back turned to me, but I'd know that silver ponytail anywhere. "Hosuh?"