b e t t y .

𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎

𝙹𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚜

Finally home, I throw the keys on the table right next to the door and put my skateboard down at the place it belongs: directly under my denim jacket. Our house is small. Really small. Coming right through the entrance door, you're already in the living room and kitchen. It's simple, but fine. I don't complain.

As expected, my mom is asleep on the couch in the middle of the tiny room. She quietly, but also hectically breathes – I'm used to it. Another result of the death of my dad. She'll sleep like that until some kind of bad dream wakes her up. But I hope that tonight, she will sleep at least a bit undisturbed.

Before going into my own room, I take some food I cooked the day before out of the fridge and warm it up a bit. I don't know if my mom has eaten something today, so I will place it at the small table in front of the couch...maybe she'll eat something when she wakes up. Today it's chicken parmigiana, one of mom's favorites. I love cooking, really. Some people say it takes too much time of the day and eat some frozen product instead, but I actually like experimenting on combining new food items together.

As I'm on my way to my room, I see that the door of Aaron's room is a bit open and lighting comes out of it. I briefly look into it, but he doesn't seem to be home. It's Aaron, what else did I expect. He's probably on the road with his boys while doing some kind of shit. I don't mind, but I mean...tomorrow school starts again and he has already repeated Senior Year, so it would be better if he would put at least a little bit of effort into his second chance. But he's nineteen, he can do what he wants. Maybe he brings me some cigarettes or other stuff when he's on his way home. I close his door and go into my own. That's it for today. Before falling asleep, the things that happened today come up once again and are repeating themselves in my head as fast as possible...me being late again, Jeffrey firing me and the talk with Betty. Betty...never thought that we would sit on her front porch together. I mean...it was really strange. But she was really nice and I liked talking to her. Probably, when school starts tomorrow, she won't remember my name or anything we said. And suddenly I really feel the urge to find out what that damn pineapple pizza I stupidly forgot at her porch tastes like.

The next day, I wake up and rub my eyes. I put on a gray shirt and some old, washed out jeans. Great– I'm a junior now. Does anything change? A look on my phone screen tells me that I have twenty minutes until I should go to school. Before that, I head to the kitchen and grab a huge bowl I quickly fill in with some flakes. Aaron also enters the room. He's dressed too – but something makes me think that he didn't even change from yesterday's night...he probably didn't even take a nap.

"Can't believe my bro is a junior now.", Aaron says and comes closer to me. He pinches me in my cheekbones while giggling - I try to push him away as fast as possible. He needs to stop doing that. I'm not a baby. He also shouldn't speak too loud. I point to mom, who is still sleeping on the couch...or pretending like she is. Aaron looks into her direction and tries to speak more quietly...but it's Aaron, so he will most likely forget it within the next minutes.

"Where were you yesterday?" He asks curiously while searching for something to eat too.

"I should ask you that question"

"I was with the boys. Here." He grabs something out of the pocket of his leather jacket. Then, he throws something into my direction. It's a tiny bottle filled with transparent liquid in it. It's probably whiskey.

"But you know – don't tell anyone." Aaron can't keep up a straight face. He knows that I won't tell someone. He also knows that I know that he wouldn't even care if it were the case.

"Seriously, where were you? It can't be at work because Jeffrey didn't seem to be happy."

Great, where did he get that from?! He knows about me being fired?