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“Never?” she said, and it took me a moment to realize what she was asking. But when I answered, I really fucking meant it.
“Never.”
22 - Lucas
Wickeston High School — Junior Year
Pops had been deadfor two weeks and it still didn’t feel real. The old man should be out of my damn head by now. He should have been the last person in my thoughts. But he was still there. I’d wake up in the morning thinking I heard him shouting for me. Thinking I heard the door slam.
But all that was left of him was ashes. They sat in a plastic bag in a cardboard box on the tiny table in my trailer. Half of me wanted to just chuck them in a dumpster. The other half thought that I should do shit properly, honor Mama’s wishes and go back home to lay him to rest.
But fuck him. He never let me rest when he was alive; why should he rest anywhere at all once he was dead?
I wasn’t sad the old man was dead, but it certainly complicated things. He had no life insurance, he hadn’t left me with savings to cover his final expenses. I’d been working as many hours as I could at the tire shop but minimum wage didn’t cover the bills.
They’d already been piling up, even before his heart attack. Now, I didn’t even bother to open the envelopes. They sat on the dirty kitchen table, some stamped with FINAL NOTICE on the front.
I didn’t need electricity. I could get away with water from the hose in the trailer park. But I couldn’t get away with not having food, and funds for that were running dangerously low. Vincent kept showing up with casseroles and “leftovers” from his mom, things he insisted she was sending because it was “extra” but I knew better. They were putting themselves out, trying to take care of me when they already had too many people under their roof. Four of their own children, plus another on the way. And Jason had been staying with them more often lately as the fights with his parents grew worse.
The Volkovs would have taken all of us in without hesitation. They would have found a way. But I wasn’t going to take advantage of that family’s generosity; I needed to find my own way out of this shit.
It was getting harder and harder to keep trying. Why did everything have to be such a fucking struggle? Just a constant, unending stress. From the moment I woke up to the second I managed to fall into a fitful sleep. I spent most of my waking hours trying to distract myself, but distractions didn’t do much good when you were hungry, cold, or desperate.
So that was why I was at this damn high school even after classes had ended. I wasn’t entirely sure what the occasion was. It was some kind of open house, it seemed, with parents wandering around the gymnasium picking at plates of catered sandwiches and making small talk with teachers. The only students who’d bothered to come were the exact sorts I went out of my way to avoid: preppy, overly-involved, stuck-up fucks with silver spoons in their mouths. They had nothing better to do than come here and schmooze with teachers, thinking it would somehow get them ahead in life.
I doubted any of these people even knew my dad was dead. I hadn’t exactly made a big deal out of it; I’d been trying to figure out how to get emancipated even before his death. The most involvement my dad ever had with my schooling was calling to complain that I was only allowed to work a certain amount of hours outside school.
I was already attracting attention by being here, so I tried to keep my head down and blend in. Unlike me, there were plenty of other people here very eager to have all the attention on them.
Like Jessica Martin and her mother. The two of them could have been twins, although separated by about twenty years. They both wore tight blue dresses, although Mama Martin’s had a deeply plunging neckline that showed off a very expensive pair of tits. As annoying as Jessica was, I had to hand it to her: she always managed to look like she was about to attend some fancy party. I couldn’t understand where she got the energy to bother.
Although, I guess when you’re not stressing about survival, you get to spend your energy on ridiculous shit like sparkly bags and matching shoes with your mom.
The two of them were cozying up to Mr. Kotham, our English teacher, and of course the old creep was thrilled at the attention. Most of the teachers at this school I disliked, but it was nothing personal. But with Kotham,thatshit was personal. He was always hovering over the young women in class, touching their shoulders, offering private tutoring. Real pervert behavior.
Jessica was one of his favorites to dote on. Funnily enough, Jason said she was still failing his class. Maybe that was why Mrs. Martin was making those bedroom eyes at him, utterly ignoring the fact that he kept touching her daughter’s waist. Holding her hand. Embracing her.
