Chapter One – Bree
It’s funny how everyone thinks you’re okay as long as you’re smiling. Grin and bear it, they say, not knowing and not caring whatever it was you were feeling inside. People might say they care, but their actions and their words always proved differently. I’d come to learn that in my life.
Only twenty years old, and yet I felt so much older. Mentally, physically, you name it. Just drained, watching the world pass me by, waiting for my life to really start while wondering: is this it? Is this what my life will be like?
And then, the even bigger question: what’s the big deal?
People always make such a big fuss about life. It’s this precious thing that means so much more than anything else—it’s why we have funerals when our loved ones pass, because we’re sad they’re gone. To me, though, life didn’t seem worth celebrating. It wasn’t fun. It just…was.
Life was something that was unavoidable, something I was forced to get through just because my parents got together and decided they wanted a kid right then and there. Susan and Andrew Stone. They were good enough parents, I supposed. They fed me, bought me clothes when I needed new ones, kept a steady roof over my head while never beating me or abusing me. A lot of kids had it worse growing up, I knew.
No, the strange thing was I didn’t have a bad life. I had a family who said they loved me, and up until a few years ago, I had a few friends, too. Now they were off in college, having gone to specialized schools for their majors while I floundered about in the local community college, not knowing what I wanted to major in still. But hey, at least the local college was a hell of a lot cheaper, right?
I guess, deep down, I was hoping for a sign, something to either tell me what to major in, what to drown the rest of my life in…or hoping for something to just end it. I mean, if I was dead, I wouldn’t have to worry about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
Depressing, but true. If you stick around, you’ll find that a lot of the thoughts that come into my head could fit under the subject of depressing.
I laid in bed for what felt like forever, wide awake as I stared at the ceiling. The alarm clock hadn’t rung on my phone yet, so it wasn’t time to get up. Not yet. I realized a while ago that if I was up before my dad, he asked too many questions.
Feeling all right? How’s school? Make any new friends?
The answers to those questions remained the same, as they always did, which was why I hated it when he asked me. No, fine, and definitely not.
So I instead took to laying in bed for as long as I possibly could before I had to get up, get dressed, and go. I’d spaced out my classes enough during the day at the college to have to spend all day there; there was no point in driving home between them, because in less than thirty minutes, I’d have to turn around and drive back. No point in wasting gas. I usually spent my time between classes either sitting in the library, working on homework, or waiting for time to pass in any of the lounges in the campus buildings.
I knew some people my age loved college. Some enjoyed going to the parties, hooking up with strangers, getting plastered and forgetting to write their papers until the day before they were due, but that wasn’t me. I didn’t go to parties, never hooked up—still a virgin, not that it mattered—and I never touched any alcohol in my life, unless you counted the wine they served you at your First Communion. Not sure that counted.
What did I love? I’ll get back to you on that.
When my phone began to buzz under my pillow, I reached under it and pulled it off the charger, swiping the icon on its flat screen aside. Getting out of bed was a chore, but when you were already wide awake, it was made a lot easier. I hardly ever got sleep anyways. Always interrupted, fitful. Couldn’t remember the last time I got enough solid sleep to have a dream.
Since it was early fall, the weather outside was growing a bit cooler. Not cold exactly, but getting there. Soon enough the world would be encased in snow and ice, and I’d be white-knuckling it to the college in all sorts of weather in my old, beat-up car. My parents’ old vehicle, which they’d given me when they bought a new Jeep. I was thankful, because not everyone was given a car with no strings attached, but I also knew why they gave it to me.
They wanted me to make friends. To go out, to live what they thought was a normal life for a young adult in the twenty-first century. Eh, they had Michelle for that—my younger sister by two years. Eighteen and anything but innocent; this semester might be her first in college, but she had stepped foot on college campuses a lot earlier than now. She was doing some online school, but in a year or so, she’d be moving out and going to a college that was a few hours away. When that happened…I had no idea what I’d do. She took my parents’ attention off me, so once she was gone, Mom and Dad would have nothing better to do than worry about me.
I picked a baggy sweatshirt, along with a pair of torn jeans. I slid my Vans on, a simple black pair, and stopped before the mirror resting on my dresser. I didn’t wash my hair yesterday, so it was a bit greasy. I hated showering, honestly, just like I hated making the bed. It’s why I hardly ever did it. There was no point.
I did, however, decide to grab a beanie hat off the floor and pull it over my head, hiding the worst of the grease. Having thin hair was a drag, definitely. I could thank my dad for that. Luckily, with bright pink hair, everyone always noticed the color and not the grease. Unless those people were my parents, in which case they always brought it up.
When’s the last time you showered? None of your goddamn business, okay?
My backpack, my old, worn bag from high school, sat near the door to my bedroom, and I picked it up silently, leaving my room. The moment I stepped into the hall, my nose picked up the scent of bacon. It smelled good, of course, but that wasn’t going to make me stop and want to have it with my dad, who was surely the cook downstairs.
Michelle’s door was still closed across from me in the hall, and I wondered what time she got in last night. She’d been dating this kid from our high school for over a year now; she and Kyle were still somehow in the honeymoon phase, where they wanted to spend every waking moment together.
Good for them, I guessed. I’d never known what that felt like, and I doubted I ever would.
Heaving a silent sigh, I headed down the stairs. Indeed, I was right: my dad stood before the stove, a plate of fresh bacon beside him. He’d just cracked two eggs over the pan, cooking them in the way we all liked in this family—over easy, the best kind for dipping. Sunnyside up wasn’t cooked nearly enough for my taste.
“Morning, Bree,” my dad chimed in, tossing a smile over his shoulder. Mom was still upstairs; I’d heard her in the shower as I came down. “Want eggs before you go?” He worked at a local dentist’s office; today he didn’t have to go in until the afternoon. His thinning brown hair gave way to a shiny scalp up top, though his facial hair showed no signs of thinning. My dad looked like literally every other dad in America, nothing super impressive or imposing about him.
I liked him, as much as you could ever really like your parent. I liked Mom too, I guess. They were both decent people. I felt bad they wound up with me as a daughter. No one deserved me.
“No,” I said, heading straight for the door. “Thanks.”