Chapter 1
I had no intention of choosing sides until I was sure who was going to win. This isn’t my fault. I am tired. So tired of hearing them bitch at each other.
A normal day? Depends on who you ask. They always fought. Always pulling pushing squeezing grabbing: wanting to be her favorite. Thing. Prize. Love?
They weren’t. Neither were they. Only I knew. Saw. Heard. They always fight. He was the worst.
Ruthless. Immoral without purpose at times like these. Immeasurable resilent to her plotting, that is what he thought. He, the user, using, for what? It was easy for me to hate him when they fought. It always is.
Her. Yes her. She was cunning. A scapel. Patience. Waiting for him to make a mistake. Smirking. It was her eyes, she had knowing eyes, arrogant eyes that knew they were innocent.
Sometimes, it was quiet. Sometimes normal. Normal like what comes out of a dog and you step in it and you don’t realize until you’re around other people and you look down at your shoe and its covered in normal.
I had no intention of choosing sides because I couldn’t. Why did they try to make me? In my mind, every one lost, loses the loosest.
I can’t stand babysitting. Listening to them fight and throw fits and pout. Why do I have to be understanding? Why must I endure keep her self warm, safe?
It was him. In the beginning. He had wandering eyes. Eyes that wander. “Honey, I’m screwing the neighbor.”
“That’s great dear, let me know how it turns out.”
wandering. When everything was grand, colorful, forever, even then he had eyes that wander. Caressing legs and thighs, anything but her.
Then she did shit like that to him. She just said off the wall shit. Like the neighbor shit. Like, what was that? What the hell? She’s as crazy as she is patient. I think she just want his eyes to wander over her.
This room is not large enough to contain me. No, it is not large enough to give distance between them and me. What do normal people do? I have no clue.
I’m leaving. That’s it. They can go on endlessly. They will, not me. I’m out.
It’s nice outside. Fall.
The moment I’m outside, I feel.
It is nice to feel. There are these trees in my neighborhood. Big damn trees, old trees. It is quiet out here. I like looking inside windows. Not peeping. I’m not a creep, just looking in the windows from the sidewalk.
I like to believe there are people inside who love each other. People who listen. I don’t know. I just like looking at houses. Its what I do when I walk. I never have an actaual destination but I always end up going to see this house.
This house. This house is the house. The House. I want to live in it one day. I want to have a family and I want to live in this house with them. Its made of like old stone and it looks out over the whole town. It’s like tucked, no like notched into a hill. An alcove or some secret. It has this view. This damn house has a damn wrought iron gate and I want climb over it and run to the porch, damn veranda, and just sit on it and listen to the trees.
I swear to much when I’m anxious. My doctor says its due to insecurity and problems with attatchment. She says I need to emote more. Her name is Mary, like the mother of Jesus Christ. Mary Jendrasik. Dr. Jendrasik but you can call me Mary. Like we’re friends. We aren’t, but she’s alright. Her office has this nice smell to it. It’s warm and relaxing. I don’t like going but once I’m there its not so bad.
I haven’t told her about the house. She’ll think I’m irrational. No, I don’t care its not that. Its, well it’s a hope. A secret place. Its mine. I don’t want to share it, I don’t want her to label it or change it. This house, these trees.
I always end up walking in this big circle. More like a loop but I start by leaving them bitching at each other and I end up coming back.
Late. Dark.
Quite.
If I am lucky they are both asleep, if not, one is awake.
“How was your walk?”
As if nothing happened, as if the bloody dying, dead thing is not struggling for life in this room.
“WHAT THE HELL is wrong with you? Can’t you be my parents for five minutes? Do you even know how messed up it is hearing you call her ’a ran through old bag? Do you understand how screwed up that is? I went on a walk because any place is better than here. Its dead. You killed it and its dead and this place rots and I hate it and I just want you to know. To care.”
I want to take a permanent marker and write this on his forehead.
“It was fine. I’m going to bed. Goodnight Mark.”
I stopped calling them mom and dad when I was 9, since then its been Mark and Leslie, or just Mark and Mother. Mary says that was me protecting myself from what I subconsicouly deemed unsafe. That wasn’t it. I don’t call them mom and dad because those are words I don’t really understand. I mean of course I know what they mean, uh duh. But understand, experience, emote, not a chance.
