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Chapter
Three: Two A.M.
“And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd
‘Cause these words are my diary screaming out loud
And I know that you’ll use them however you want to.”
***
I hate Mondays. They’re the worst day of the week, in my opinion. After the
weekend, coming back to school and trying to get into the habit of waking up
early is hard. It was around eight o’clock and I was sitting in the living
room with two of my younger siblings, Amy and Mark.
“Did you hear Riley and dad this morning?” Amy looked over at me.
“No, what happened?”
Mark lifted his head from the book he was reading. His hair was the exact
shade of ‘new penny’ red, a lighter version of my moms hair color. His eyes
sometimes matched his hair eerily closely, and his skin was white as a sheet
but dusted with freckles. He was the type of boy that girls loved to look
at. I knew he would be a heart breaker in his day.
“I can’t believe you slept through all that yelling,” said Amy. “But I only
heard the end of it myself. Dad was screaming really loud about Riley being
stupid and a liar and not having his stuff ready on time.”
“Poor Riley,” I said. “I don’t know why dad picks on him so much.”
“Because he’s difficult and dad hates difficult,” said Mark, folding his
book in his lap. It surprised me how much he had grown since we moved here.
Not just in physical appearance, but in maturity. It was hard to believe
that he was only ten years old.
“I know. He is. But he’s still just a kid. He shouldn’t be yelled at like
that.”
Dad walked in the room and looked at us all as if he were a hunter and we
had just killed his best hound. “Why aren’t you doing schoolwork?” We looked
at each other, knowing that dad was just about ready to explode. He’s much
better now, but back then, the stress was so high that sometimes it got to
him and he became really angry. “It’s almost nine in the morning and none of
you have done a single thing!” He was yelling really loudly. Mark stood up
and walked to his room and Amy picked her History book up off the floor and
began reading. “Why are you still sitting there?!” He was addressing me
directly now.
“I was going to-”
“Get in there and do your math! Don’t come out until it’s done.” By ‘there’
I knew he meant the school room, but my book was in my bedroom. I started
walking in that direction, and before he could yell at me I explained that I
was just going to get my schoolwork. He scoffed. “If you’re not in there in
five minutes it’s room restriction for a week.” And then he turned and went
to sit at the computer. With his attention averted I could stare openly at
him and he wouldn’t notice. I wasn’t scared of him- not anymore- I was just
angry now, and all my anger went into that glare I shot at his back. It
didn’t do anything, but it made me feel better.
***
I was sprawled out on the floor of the schoolroom with my math book laying
open and flat on my stomach. It was two in the afternoon now, and I had
barely gotten anything done. I sighed and looked up at the glow-in-the-dark
stars on the ceiling. Mark had put them up when this was still his room, and
had never bothered to take them down. As I looked at them, one fell and
landed on my chest. This had the effect of snapping me out of my daze and
sending me back to the real world.
“Ouggh.” I let out a groan as I rolled over and propped myself up on my
elbows, positioning the book infront of me. I stared down at the pages and
tried to make sense of them. I read the first paragraph and then read it
again. I looked down the first row of problems and flicked forward a few
pages, then back a few more. “What,” I asked the book angrily, “Is this
nonsense? It doesn’t make any sense.” I stared at the pages for a few more
minutes, trying to descipher the instructions, but I was so sleepy and had
been doing this so long, that I felt like I couldn’t take it any more. When
I looked down at the page, all the numbers blurred together and things
shifted in and out of focus. I pressed my hands over my eyes and whispered
to myself. “I can’t do this. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t...”
***
It was a sunny day in April, 1998. We were outside: my family, my new foster
brothers, and I. The sun beat down on us and the top of my head was hot.
“What time is it?” I asked my dad.
“What? oh- uhm...I don’t know sweetheart. Ask your mother.”
“She’s busy.”
“I am too.” He was playing basketball, his wrist watch on his right arm. I
sighed and began walking back towards the house, but I heard Amy calling out
to dad. I turned around and saw her standing by the monkey bars, yelling,
‘Daddy, watch me!’ My eyes went back to our father, who was running around
the court with the boys. He wasn’t going to come.
“Go on, Amy. I’m watching.” She looked disappointed, but after I came to
stand beside her, she smiled.
“Okay,” she said, and then she jumped and latched on to the first bar. “Uhm...
can you give me a push?” I laughed and stepped up behind her dangling body
and gave her a gentle nudge. She made it across the bars and landed nimbly
on her feet at the other end. She was grinning from ear to ear. “Thanks,”
she said.
“Any time.”
***
“Dear God, Thank you for this food. Thank you for...uhm...er...what do I
say?” whispered my baby sister, Hannah, in an undertone to mom. A few barely
supressed laughs could be heard. We were sitting around the dinner table,
holding hands, heads bowed, waiting on Hannah to finish praying.
“-My family.” Whispered my mom. Hannah echoed. This continued for a few
moments: My mom speaking, Hannah repeating her words. I looked up and my
eyes met Amy's. She stared at me and then made a really funny face. I tried
to choke down my laughter, but there was no hiding the shaking in my
shoulders.
“and Aaaaymen.” said Hannah. There was an immediate release of hands and
breath as everyone reached for the food that was nearest them. We had all
been quiet during the prayer (for the most part), but now we were chatting
and discussing the days events as we helped ourselves to dinner.
“Okay, now, everything goes from the right to left, so start this bowl here-
No, Victor, help Jaleel- and start this one on the other end. Pass the salad
dressing with the salad.” My mom shouted over the clinking of forks against
plates and dishes being passed around. Tonight we were having chicken,
salad, and peas.
“Riley,” my dad said in an aggrivated voice. “Stop—Staring—At—Me!”
Riley quickly bowed his head and looked at his plate. He had this habit of
staring off into space, or, more often, at my dad. “And chew with your mouth
closed! I don’t want to see all that food swishing around in your mouth.”
Riley lifted his head up and said, “I wasn’t!”
“I saw you do it!” dad yelled. The vein at the base of his temple
throbbed.“How can you tell me I didn’t see you eating with your mouth open
when I did?” A short, tense silence followed. “I mean, really. Come on! Do
you know what you look like when you eat? Like this-” And he scooped up a
fork-ful of peas and shoved them in his mouth then dribbled them down his
chin. Riley sighed in indignation and looked at the opposite wall. He was
used to this by now, as we all were. It was an almost nightly occurance.
“It’s disgusting! How many times do we have to tell you to chew with your
mouth closed? How many?” Nobody spoke, but my mom was looking at dad,
wearing that look of warning. Her eyes said, ‘John, you’re crossing the
line’. But he continued anyway, “Every night!” he shouted.
And it was true. He did tell Riley to chew with his mouth closed every
night. The boys table manners were horrible, but for some reason he just
couldn’t change it. In his own mind, his manners were just fine, and he
honestly didn’t know what everyone’s problem was.
“Dilbert, what are you doing?” I looked over to my right and saw Dilbert,
his head bowed and his face very close to his plate. His nose was scrunched
up in distaste, but when he heard my dad’s voice, he jerked up and looked
wide-eyed at my dad. “Leave the table,” my father said loudly. “If you have
a problem with the food, you can leave.” Dilbert looked wide-eyed at my
mother, then back at dad. When neither of them said they were joking, he
picked up his plate obediently and scuttled off into the kitchen to wash his
plate and silverwear.
I sighed and looked down at my food. After all this yelling, I really didn’t
want to be out here anymore. I wanted to go back to my room. So I did as
Dilbert had done and scraped my leftovers into the trash can then washed my
plate. As I was walking down the hall towards my room I heard a sort of
humming noise. I didn’t know what it was at first, but as I walked towards
the double doors at the end of the house, the humming became more audible
and clear. Then I realized that it wasn’t humming at all; it was crying.
Actually, ‘wailing’ might be a better term.
“I want my mom! I want my mom! I want my mom!”
Those words were repeated inbetween loud, anguished sobs, and my heart went
out to Dilbert as he cried. But what could I do? If I went in there it would
only get us both in trouble, and he probably wanted to be alone anyway.
I jumped as I heard a loud banging coming from the other side of the door.
BANG! It came again. By now, I wasn’t the only one standing around the room.
Kids were lingering in the hallway, pretending to be doing other things, but
they were all listening in as well. The crying and banging was too loud to
be ignored. My mom came walking by us all and opened the door to his room. I
caught a fleeting glimpse of Dilbert, slamming his head against his dresser
before mom shut the door.
I don’t know what happened then. I could hear my mom talking to him in her
‘soothing’ tone of voice. Dad came down the hall and told us all to go and
do our chores, but it was my week to be off duty, which means that I didn’t
have a chore. So I went to my room, layed down on my bed, and hid my face in
my pillow.
It wasn’t the first time I had seen something like that. After living in a
foster home for six years, I had seen much the same thing before.
One boy, a lot like Dilbert in many ways but seven years old instead of
nine, would do the same thing. He cried and talked about his mom non-stop.
There would be bruises around his eyes and scratches on his arms. When asked
about the bruises, he would say things like, “I accidentally poked my eye
with a candle.”
He didn’t stay with us long. The few months he was with us were enough to
know that he needed more help than we could provide, so he was sent
elsewhere. ‘Somewhere they can give him the attention he needs’ was how my
mother put it. I won’t forget him though. He was small for his age, and very
thin. His cheek bones and bright blue eyes were very defined, and his
white-blonde hair matched very closely with his pale skin. He was a nice
boy, but could be very manipulative at times. He would use his charms to get
what he wanted and if you weren’t wary, you could become wrapped around his
finger. Sometimes it’s good to give and sometimes it’s good to deny. By
having him in my life, I learned to know when each was appropriate.
***
“What time is it?” I wondered . I was lying on my back staring up at the
ceiling. It felt like I had been in this same exact spot for hours. My clock
was behind me in the windowsill, and I could have seen it easily enough if I
turned around, but that would have involved moving, which I didn’t want to
do. So I gazed up at the ceiling, as I had been doing, and tried to ignore
the nagging, ‘What time is it?’ that remained in the back of my mind.
I thought about the last few days, even though I tried not to. I couldn’t
even remember the details clearly but I knew that nothing good had happened.
Nothing good ever happened. Each day blurred into the next and it was hard
to seperate days from weeks and weeks from months. We rarely went anywhere.
We weren’t even allowed to go outside any more unless there was an adult
with us. My mom was too busy to go outside, and dad didn’t go out unless he
wanted to, which was very rare these days.
I wanted to go somewhere, hang out with someone. If only I could drive! But
where would I go? I had friends at Church, but we weren’t close enough that
it wouldn’t be weird if I asked them to go to the movies, and I certainly
didn’t get invited anywhere. I was always here, in this bed, in this room,
in this house.
The ceiling above me clouded over and I realized with a shock that I was
crying. But it didn’t feel like crying. I wasn’t experiencing that aching
feeling you get in the back of your throat, or the tightness you feel in
your stomache. I was just... leaking tears. There was definatley something
wrong with me. I never cried. I sat up and wiped away my tears, thinking
that it must have been because I was tired. I know now that I cried because
I was depressed.
Rolling onto my stomach, I caught a glimpse of the clock. It was 2:00 am.
***
Chapter 4
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by
Tegan L. Elliott
© Copyright 2006 Tegan L. Elliott (UN: ganlynde at
Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Tegan L. Elliott has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates
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Please help
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