Teenage Baby

Chapter 26

Chapter 26:

Cold. Tired. Sleepy.

Aaron was sure it was a perfect combo. Or more like a familiar combo, because that was how he spent his entire life.

He trudged down the empty road of his neighborhood. It had rained all night long, and now he could smell the refreshing dampness in the air as the cold morning wind lapped and whipped against his face, disheveling his hair. His nose numbed beneath the strength of the low temperature, and he wasn't even sure anymore if he were breathing correctly or not. His cheeks felt frozen, what were surfaces of soft skin now ice rinks for the wind to dance on.

He pushed his hands further inside the pockets of his thick black jacket that he thanked God he wore; he hadn't expected it to be that cold, nor had he expected himself to wake up so exhausted, so much more in desperate need for sleep. Last night, his father had decided to turn the volume of the TV to maximum just so he could spite Aaron and torture him with the loud noises all night long. Aaron had tried to ignore the noises; had clamped his hands to his ears, buried his face in the pillow and beneath it—all tries had gone vain.

Aaron was sure he looked drunk to anyone as he made his way towards his school: battling himself to keep his eyes open, feet barely stable on the ground. He could hardly see in front of him with the thick fog that shadowed everything around. Or maybe the fog wasn't that strong, and it was just that he was so sleepy he couldn't see straight.

Thunder rumbled, tore down the air around Aaron as it descended. He glanced over his shoulder, and with a squint and some focus, he realized that just behind and up in the gloomy sky now hung a thick black stormy cloud.

"No no no," Aaron muttered to himself as he began hurrying down the roads towards his school, eyes casted down and completely heedless of the surroundings. He didn't want to reach there sopping wet, with hair that stuck flat against his forehead or clothes fully drenched. So he rushed.

He went on, head down, feet crunching the gravel beneath him hastily, until he heard a piercing shout of a woman just behind.

"Careful, careful!"

Before he knew it, a hand gripped his upper arm, gentle fingers curling around the thick sleeve of the jacket tightly and pulling him to the side in a sudden jerk. Aaron looked up at whoever held his arm, instinctively yanking it free. A woman stood before him, with green eyes that shone with heavy concern even beneath the gloomy light of the stormy morning, and blond hair that fell from beneath her beanie.

She pointed behind him. "You were about to run straight into that pole," she said. "You would've slammed your head really badly, and talk about a concussion."

Aaron's eyes docilely followed what her slim index finger was pointing at. There, and where he was once heading half blindly towards, stood a sturdy and long iron pole that stretched high up into the sky. He sighed loudly, one hand combing through his tousled black hair awkwardly.

He turned to her again, a smile breaking into his face. "I'm sure you can tell I'm not a morning person," he quipped as he looked at her with an appreciative shine lifting the dark hue of his eyes. "Thank you anyway."

For a moment, there wasn't one word to be heard, and all Mommy could do was watch the smile on his face closely. She could tell, she could see and sense, how tired he was. It was written all over him—from the way his shoulders hunched tiredly from the weight of the backpack, to the way thin red veins crept from the corner of his eyes: stark proof of how little sleep he was getting. He looked like he needed just a prod to collapse right there and nap on the ground.