Forever for a Year(3)

“Don’t worry about me. Get up. Lily refused to get on the bus since you were still sleeping. Now she’s late too. So get up now. We leave here in twenty minutes.”

“Mom can drive me.”

“Your mother is sleeping.”

“Are we sure she’s sleeping? She might be dead.” This was a joke. You don’t understand it, because you don’t know my mom overdosed on sleeping pills over a year ago. Maybe you don’t find it funny now that you know. Neither did my dad. He gave me that look where I feel I’m the worst son ever born.

“Okay, fine,” I said, but I didn’t move. So he didn’t move. “Fine. Okay. I’m up.” I kicked off the blankets and sheets, which also dislodged him from my bed. A bonus. He didn’t leave the room until I walked into my bathroom.

Yeah, I have my own bathroom now. My little sister, Lily, who’s seven but talks like she’s forty, says this is the best part of our new house. “We really should be grateful, Trevor. Not many children get their own bathroom. We should be grateful for a lot of things, I believe. Our family really needed the fresh start.” She’s right. She’s super smart. She was smarter when she was five, but then the crap happened with my mom and now she tries too hard. But she’s still the smartest seven-year-old ever.

I turned on the shower, sat down in the tub and just let the water rain down on me. I love sitting in the shower. Usually do it for forty-five minutes. Just sit and think and sometimes don’t think, which is just as nice. Lily says it’s bad for the environment, wasting all that water. I tell her it’s not wasting water; it’s saving my soul. Then she says, “I have such a strange brother,” and walks away.

My dad pounded on my bathroom door less than ten minutes into my shower escape. I almost pretended not to hear him, but I decided to be nice. His year has been pretty crappy too.

*

My mom grew up in Riverbend, Illinois. That’s why we moved back here from Los Angeles, to be closer to my grandma and Uncle Hank and his family. My grandpa, who was super cool because he just listened and didn’t try to impress you, died a few months before my mom overdosed. He had a stroke, didn’t like being weak, stopped eating, and just died. My grandma blames his death for my mom’s depression. My dad agrees, which is total denial. My mom’s been depressed my whole life, so it has nothing to do with my grandpa dying. Just a good excuse. I don’t blame her for being depressed. Life is pointless. I’m sorry. It is. But I am pissed at her for trying to leave us behind.

I was going to be a freshman this year. I was a freshman last year in Los Angeles too. But about two weeks in, I’d said screw this, I’m not going to school anymore. My mom had just come home after months at some fancy loony bin resort, so my dad thought I wanted to stay home to make sure my mom was okay. But I didn’t care. I mean, I cared about her. I still do. But I didn’t care about stopping her from trying to kill herself again. Because, guess what? You can’t stop people from hurting themselves. Impossible. So I’m smart enough to never try. I’m also smart enough to know my dad wasn’t going to fight me about going to school last year. But after twelve months of video games and a move halfway across the country, he was fighting me this time.

“Trevor! We are walking out this door!” he yelled from downstairs. I threw on some jeans, Chucks, and a blue T-shirt that just said FREE YOURSELF. All my T-shirts say crap like that. People are so gullible. Free yourself from what? Exactly.

I hadn’t gotten a haircut since my mom’s thing. That’s a lie. My dad made me get a trim two days ago, but my hair was still pretty long. Below my ears. I couldn’t quite put it in a ponytail, at least not a cool one. But soon.

When I got in the back of my dad’s BMW, Lily handed me a bagel with cream cheese and a bottle of water.

“Why don’t you say thank you, Trevor,” my dad said.

“I was about to, but you didn’t give me a chance,” I said. “Thanks, Lily.”

“Do you know what I was thinking might be a fun activity this weekend for the whole family?” Lily started. See? Like she’s forty! She’s blond like my mom, tall for her age, and probably will be the most beautiful woman ever by the time she’s a teenager. If she becomes president someday, we’ll all be lucky. “I think we should drive into Chicago, shop on Michigan Avenue, and then have dinner somewhere nice. We haven’t done that yet, and we’ve been here a whole month. I really think that could make us feel like we belong here. What do you both think about this idea?”

“I think that’s a great idea,” my dad said. He likes Lily better than me. I can’t even be angry at him for this. I like Lily better than me too.

I said, “Sure, Lily. But only if I don’t have tons of pointless homework that I must do for no reason.”

“Trevor, I think you’re going to like high school this year. I really do,” Lily said. She’s always trying to be my life coach.

When we stopped outside Skvarla Elementary, Lily turned to my dad and me and said, “Both of you have wonderful days,” and then hopped out and sprinted toward the entrance, her hair swishing and backpack spinning on her right arm. Only when she ran like that did you remember she was seven years old.

I think it reminded my dad of the same thing, because he mumbled, “I should walk her in on her first day,” and then jumped out of the car and ran after her. Later, watching him walk back to the car, he had this smile that only Lily can give him. That smile was gone by the time he got back behind the wheel. He had to deal with me now. “Get in the front, Trevor.”