Four
I sighed and packed my things. The parking lot was empty when I got to my mother’s car and I noticed a Ferrari parked next to it. I surveyed the parking lot to make sure no one saw me and climbed into the old Mazda. Blond messy hair and lifeless black eyes greeted me. My mother was once beautiful but she gave herself over to her grief and to alcohol and drugs.
“Hey Mom,” My mother and I have never been close. We were strangers living in the same house. If I didn't have her heart shaped face and sun kissed skin then I would've suspected she wasn't my biological mother. I still did. Our relationship was too fictional. Unreal. We just pretended as if the other didn't exist. We fought a lot but left each fight hanging. The other would just abruptly end a conversation.
“You don’t have to be so nervous.” She mumbled through a puff of smoke. “From next week you’ll drive yourself to school. I start at the house.
“I’ll walk... thanks.” I wouldn’t be caught dead driving in that piece of junk.
She rolled her eyes and took another satisfying drag on her cheap cigarette.
“Mom…” I frowned. I never got used to calling her mom. I was much more comfortable calling her Janice. She wasn't a maternal figure anyway. She behaved more like an irritating younger sister than a mother and the fact that she disappeared on us when I was ten years old and came back last year on my fifteenth birthday put a dent on our relationship. Uncle Miles from my dad’s family raised my brother and me.
“Yes.”
“When are the owners of the house coming?”
“Today.”
“Oh.”
“How was school?” she asked. “I didn’t see you at lunch today.”
“I spent it at the library.” I mumbled, rolling down the windows to try and get the horrible smell out. Janice is a recovering alcoholic who would forget to pick me up from school when I was eight. “I had to cover some work…”
“Other people’s work,” She bellowed disapprovingly. She handed me a beer bottle. I opened it for her. When I gave it to her she gunned it down in one swing.
“I thought we agreed you don’t drink during weekdays.”
“I’m having a bad day.”
Those are the only days she ever has since my father died, my uncle from my dad’s side lives just outside of town. I usually visited him when I wanted to escape my life at home. He didn't get along with my mother. Blamed my father’s death on her. If she hadn't been craving for some ice-cream then dad wouldn't have gone out of the house. Though it was natural – Richard was hit by lightning when I was seven years old. My mother was four months pregnant then with the sister I never met. She miscarried at six months.
I shrugged.
Eventually we made it home and I gave the money I made at school to my mother. She counted it and sighed critically. “One thousand and fifty, today,” She mumbled. “Elizabeth, not that I’m not grateful, believe me I am, but you need to focus on your studies.”
“Mom, you need all the help you can get, I can’t expect you to do everything around here.”
“I’m your mother;” Janice said.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m doing this for Zack,” I whispered. “You may have given up but I’ll fight till the very end.”
“Elizabeth,” she sighed hopelessly. “Your brother has only two months to live.” Her voice cracked at the edges. "He's dying. We might as well accept it." She was a cold woman. It was like she was talking about the weather instead of her son. I wondered why she never talked about Zack's father.
“I won’t lose him to cancer,” I mumbled stubbornly. “I’ll raise enough money by the end of the month. He’ll have the surgery and things will be the same again.”
She sighed, clearly bored and lit up another cigarette.
“He’s only four, mom,” I choked back a sob. “I can’t lose him.”
She rolled her eyes, packed the car in the garage and the second she was inside the house she blustered the speakers at maximum volume – a rough translation that the conversation was over. She didn't bother to hide the fact that she didn't love us. That she didn't care.
I went through my curriculum for the year while I prepared dinner. Janice called and said I shouldn’t wait up for her, she’ll be home late. I packed her dinner in the microwave and went to bed. She worked shifts at the local restaurant as a waitress.
The pain on the back of my hand made it impossible to sleep and every time I thought of Bradley my heart would start to beat frantically. I was standing by the window and watching the rain fall down in waves but I could have sworn I saw golden eyes watching me from the forest edge.
“You should sleep.” I laughed. I was talking to myself, something I usually did when I knew for a fact I was alone.
That night I dreamt of familiar black eyes
With a sudden jolt, I was abruptly surrounded by light Monday morning, the dull daylight trying to break through the curtains. I frantically surveyed my surroundings, in search of the looming danger. As my eyes adjusted to the bright light glaring down from the ceiling and I took in the sight of familiar blue walls, white curtains, and wooded floor, worn out computer desk housing magazines and an old computer – instantly recognition dawned on me. Yesterday wasn’t a nightmare.
The panic that slammed my body was quickly flooded out by the thought of my brother coming home soon. I wanted to see his toothless smile again. I wanted him to wait on the porch for me after school, like he used to, wanted to hear him call me Ehlizobec. My broken heart soon gave way to the serenity, knowing that I put his happiness before my own, that ought to count for something.
Wiping away the scarlet locks clinging to my cheek and peeling the muggy strands curled around my neck, I heaved a sigh. I cringed from the draughtiness of my father’s old black shirt clinging to my back. Anxiety and dread clung to my body as I desperately peeled back the soaked blankets, making it painfully impossible to ignore the thoughts that trapped my mind. I can do this, I told myself narrowly. Oh how I hated school, more so now that I had to do other peoples work. My breathing came out hard and heavy, moving my chest up and down, I felt like the breath had been knocked out of me. The feelings of approaching hyperventilation ate away at my nerves. I could never avoid thinking about my brother in the morning no matter how hard I tried.
There was a knock on my door.
“Beth…” she spoke through a blocked nose, obviously holding a smoke.
“Elizabeth,” I correct her automatically, Beth sounds girly, childish.
“Elizabeth,” She sighed in despair. “Breakfast is ready.” I swear I could hear her eyes roll.
I ended my pity party and vaguely avoided taking out my eyes as I frantically wiped away the disgusting tears remaining unshed, hanging from my lashes.
“Thanks but I’ll have something at school. I have an impression to make,” The lie sounded bad even in my own ears. I could care less what they thought of me. I just needed to get to school to hand back assignments before my first lesson started.