I knew something was up when I walked up to my house. My mom’s car was in the driveway. I thought back to the last time she was here before dark. It had been a while. I turned my key into the lock and pushed open the door. Something was definitely wrong.
My mom was busy at the kitchen counter, chopping some onions. She sniffled, and looked up at me, smiling that idiot smile of hers.
“Hi honey! How was your day?”
I mumbled my hello, making it a question, even. Why was she here? I dropped my bag down beside the door and she flinched at the thump. I didn’t bother answering the question. It’s not like she cared. I shouldn’t care either.
“Hm, mine was okay. They’ve given me the day off; I’ve got a lot to do for the Thanksgiving dinner this week,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
She was crying softly, the tears sliding down her smiling cheeks. She had always loved cooking, back when she had time to bake us fabulous meals for me and Dad. Now, she just didn’t have the time anymore. Of course she offered to cook the Thanksgiving dinner they always did at her office for all the people without families. She herself didn’t have a family to share it with. I wasn’t quite important enough for that.
I nodded, and climbed up the stairs silently. I opened the door to my room, the only place where I could breathe freely, and plopped down on my desk chair. I swiveled in it, my eyes traveling from wall to wall. The soft lavender color, chosen back when my parents decided to change the nursery into a real little girl’s fairy tale room, was slanted with the soft rays of remaining sunlight from the window, above my bed. I turned to it, examining the small particles of dust dancing in the light. A single, golden butterfly, the only remaining of the fifteen I had ripped off the wall in my attempt to erase my existence, seemed ready to flutter out into the bright sunset.
I sighed and bent down to reboot my computer, logged in and opened a file. My fingers danced above the keys, forming invisible words. I needed a topic for my English essay. A window popped up on the screen. Dark against white. It was the automatic sign-in of my MSN. I stared at the names of the people online, all sorts of colors and symbols. I didn’t have that many contacts and the sight of the list brought me back.
Back, when my parents started to fight. I wasn’t concerned at first; you had to let out the steam once in a while. But it quickly got worst. Day after day, they found something new to fight about until, one day; they stopped talking to one another altogether. I was scared. I started to take my time to get back from school, afraid of the moment I would have to step through the door to this silent and cold place that home had become. As soon as I got home, I would lock myself in my room, and only come out to get my dinner. We had stopped eating as a family somewhere between the nights my mom would walk out on us every time my dad said something wrong, and the nights she simply didn’t come home from work. It was better that way. I could never bring myself to look straight in my parents’ stony stares, or sit in this heavy silence for the whole suppertime.
One night, someone added me on messenger. It was Jake. He said someone had given him my e-mail and we started talking. It surprised me a little at first. I mean, we had some friends in common, but he just had never talked to me before, in a real conversation. Now, though, it seemed weird because, when my parents started fighting, I had hung out less and less with my friends. I guess, I could say I didn’t felt like I belonged anymore. So, who would have given it to him? I should have had asked more questions.
Every night, from eight to ten o’clock, he would be online. It was so different than at school. I had always thought Jake was so inaccessible. He had never paid any attention to me but, now, when we were both online, he did. When we talked, we connected. We could talk about real things, the way they really were and I took comfort in that time of the day when I would open up to him and he would do the same. He reassured me about my parents, said that it had happened to him also and that it always ended up by being resolved. I never second guessed his words. They seemed so true; I could almost feel the sincerity in my heart. I couldn't feel anything now. But I could remember. Always remember everything. No, nothing, I don't want to be remembered, ever.
My hands turned into fist, fighting against the force that was holding me down. Heavy, on my body. I closed my eyes, unwilling to think anymore. Shut down. I wanted no more. I closed the window, stared at the screen for a second too long and then shut down the computer. My feet were numb as I walked to my window. I gripped the window ledge; the once beautiful autumn colors had lost all their vibrancy. The leaves were brown, crumpled on the ground. The trees were bare, naked. I could almost feel the decaying smell of dead leaves tickle my nose. No fresh breeze to run through my hair. The beauty was gone.
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