I can't help but stare up at the ceiling whenever I wake up. It’s like the little piece inside of me that still cares is whispering hope into what's left of my brain. My tired, rotting, brain. The only thing that jerks me awake is my second alarm. I sit up with my palms and my vision blackens with fuzzy clouds as a jolting pain attempts my sanity. I throw a course whisper at the world and lay back down. I swing my feet off the bed to sweep the floor for my slippers and slide them on. Carrying my weight slowly, I stand and head for the bathroom. The mirror is rusted at the edges and frowns back at me as I touch my knotted hair. Not only do I have a test today, no, I have to deal with my aunt because she finally doesn’t have work today. “Yay” I can see it now, the awkward conversations and selfish remarks. That bitch. After everything she’s done for me you’d think I’d be grateful, but what about what she didn’t do? I twist the blue knob and stick my toothbrush under the slow pressure, it might as well be dripping.

I actually feel like skipping today, I might drop in to say hi to Alex, but I’m not dealing with my teachers today. Nope. I’m gonna go to work and make some money. I have been saving a while for a car. I’m pretty damn close too. I’ve taken every lawn mowing job, babysitting setup, dog walking hell, and other painstaking job opportunities. For a car. I wanna put some gas in it and leave. Leave whatever is making me feel so hopeless all the time.

Clover is on the couch when I walk into the living room. “Good morning.” she says, not looking up from her files, or whatever the hell she’s holding. “What?” I look at her with the same tone as my voice, sarcastic. My aunt puts her file on her lap and reaches for her coffee to take a sip then glances at me then back at her papers, “Oh, I forgot you don’t like me, carry on.”

“I don’t get your problem. Do you even have a problem or are you like- a sociopath?” I retort, I should have just walked out the door. “Excuse me? Kid, I know I’m not around like- ever, but what the hell is so personal about that?”

“I have not seen you for any of my birthdays, even when Mom was alive and-”

“Lizzy isn’t dead.” she cuts me off and all of a sudden I’m holding back a tear. I cross my arms and scoff to shrug off my own weaknesses, and god, how many of those that I have. “Liz, isn’t dead, Elizabeth.” Clover shifts her arms in discomfort. “She’s dead to me. She’s my mom and I loved her, but she’s dead.” I say, my hands become itchy. “Dead to you? She’s alive, she is in a coma. You’re such a pessimist that you don’t understand that she could still have a chance at life.” She says aggressively, looking at me with anger. Actual anger. The words hit me in my stomach. Hard. “Wow, is this you trying to change the subject? See, I’m talking about the fact that you never hung out with either of us. At all. And it still seems you loved her more than I did.”

“Did? You don’t love her anymore. So yeah, I guess I care more than you do about your mom.” When she threatens me everything tenses and I realize my words came out wrong, I do love her. So much. “I do, I do care about her. But, Clover,” I loosen my voice to push away the pain leaking into my eyes, “Clover, you don’t know what she did for me that you can never provide.” Her eyes soften into plead as I walk out the door. I can’t stand her. This shitty apartment, her stupid arguments, all the sleepless nights. Oh and Emmette. Emmette.

After my shift at the grocery store, I’m shot. Stocking grandma diapers was the most time sucking crap ever. I plop onto a nearby cafe bench and hang my head backwards. After using up the whole day at the grocery store, I’m still kinda thinking about the fight with Clover this morning. The sun was making its way down but I didn’t want to go home quite yet. I pull up Instagram to see that Emmette is hosting a party tonight. Woo, the only place I can find peace is at “the guy with the boyfriend problems’” house. Can’t wait. I figure that I’ll invite Alex too since I don’t intend to go unarmed.

Alex picked me up and we went to her house to get ready, where I borrowed one of her dresses. A short lengthed shiny black dress with a v-neck and shoulderless long sleeves. Gotta be the sluttiest thing I’ve ever worn, but hey, I looked good. We did each other’s hair and she curled mine, then I straightened hers. I picked her dress, a pink pleated skirt with a slender, tucked turtle neck lacking sleeves or shoulders. Hell, she was so beautiful. While I did thick eyeliner, she turned to a natural look with a little dark eye shadow.

“Oh we are total babes,” Alex comments as we pose in her full length mirror. “Badasses.” I add. She giggles and we snap a picture together before saying bye to her dad, who has always been concerningly lenient with what we do. But hey, I’m not complaining. We slide into her white Honda and speed off towards Emmette’s house. “Alex, you do remember Emmette, right?” I warn, as we get closer and closer to our destination. “Uh, duh. Babe, that's obvious.” I sigh, “So, we have to make a good impression, better.” I say, I need to show him up. “Yeah and?” Alex replies. “This is me saying, don’t let me get drunk.” She nods and mutters something Mandarin under her breath. “Tilly, you shouldn’t have to refrain from having fun just because he’s there. Plus-” she reaches in her bag and hands me a chapstick. “I came prepared.”

“Uhm, what the hell is this supposed to mean?” I look at the stick in my fingers and offer another concern, “Are you saying that I should hook up with him?” Alex sighs, “God no, babe, I’m saying that you should make out with someone else. Jesus, E.” I laugh and smear the chapstick carefully over my lip stain before stuffing it back in her purse. “You scare me sometimes, Lexi.”

We pull up to his house beside the many other cars there. This boy’s parents are filthy rich. And two years ago he kissed the poorest girl in his school. “You sure you wanna do this, Tilly?” Alex grabs my hand to squeeze it and I squeeze back. “It’s a little late to turn back now isn’t it?” She looks at me. “Kinda.” Her smile is enough to let me put one heel in front of the other as we enter the party. The music is drowning me in adrenaline and we walk around to find the drinks. She grabs two plastic cups and fills them with some ol’ alcoholic punch to hand me one then chugs hers. I take a few gulps and already feel woozy, I never go to many parties. Alex always invites me to go with her but I’d rather stay in my room than get wasted with a bunch of losers alike. As much as I dread seeing him, I wanna see Emmette. I wonder what happened to Ian.

“Holy shit, Elizabeth?” This kid, Oliver walks up to me and Alex, he already looks buzzed despite the party only having been an hour so far. “Woah, man. I can’t believe Emmette let you in here.” I scoff as I glare at him. “Yeah-” he looks Alex up and down then stares behind me, “no. No. If he found me he wouldn’t be able to get rid of me anyway.” I raise an eyebrow, “Whatever, man.” I say. “Do you know where Emmette is?” I ask and Oliver finally maintains eye contact with me. “What? Oh yeah, sure-” he slurs his words, it’s almost unintelligible underneath the rager music, “sure. He’s yeah, he’s in the backyard by the trampoline.” I nod toward the back door and Alex follows me.

The backyard is a little quieter music-wise, but there’s still a bunch of people crowding around and yelling their asses off. I do, however, spot Emmette by the trampoline. “Alex, I think I wanna talk to him on my own. You can go have some fun.” She grabs my shoulders and stares me in the eyes, “Babe, don’t screw this up.” She tugs me a bit closer, “chug the rest of that punch, you’ll need it.” She walks off and joins a group of people dancing. I almost laugh to myself at her carelessness but remind myself that I have issues to face right now.

Emmette is surrounded by a few people so I weave my way through them and they excuse themselves from the original conversation. I guess when richboy dates someone, everyone knows what happened. Woo, drama.

“Emmette.”

“Tilly?” He’s holding a plastic cup and staring at me with either disgust or relief. After everyone dispersed, we just stared at each other for a minute. I think it’s weird that when us girls go out, we get dressed in fancy clothes, makeup and high heels. But guys just throw on a tank and jeans. Me and Alex spent an hour in her closet, and all Emmette had to do was get his hands on some cheap booze and post an invite.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Emmette holds the back of his neck and takes a gulp of what I’m assuming is punch. “I came to say hi.” I toss the cup into the grass and fold my arms. “You do know that we haven’t talked in years and that we hate each other right?” He leans on the trampoline behind him and scowls at me. I don’t know what my plan was. Originally I told myself to mind my own business and have fun, but then I saw Oliver and couldn’t remember my objective anymore. “I didn’t know you had a trampoline.” I say then bite the inside of my lip. Why in the everloving hell am I trying to start small talk right now? “Seriously?” He rolls his eyes and searches behind me for a distraction. “We aren’t friends, Tilly.”

“Then why are you calling me by my nickname?” I sound cocky, but that’s the way it should be, he’s right, we aren’t friends. “Okay, Elizabeth. Why are you trying to talk to me about my trampoline? Is that some sort of new pickup line or-”

“Y’know, we could just say sorry to each other and maybe we’d both stop feeling guilty about what happened.” I snap coolly. It’s only a matter of time until the seconds slow and I start running back to Alex. But I don’t want that to happen. I genuinely want to get over our fight. “So you want me to apologize?” His pupils snap right back to staring me down into the little ball of shit that I am. “No.-” I put my hands down by my sides, “No. I want us both to apologize.”

“Why even bother? To stop feeling guilty? Guilty about what? The fact that we were never meant to be friends forever or the fact that I was never meant to kiss you?” He may as well been yelling at me, but the blood swishing around in my ears and the music in the background killed the anger that came with it. “Guilty about how we ended it, Em. We were screaming at each other and that’s not the way I want to remember us. Not for the rest of my life. As much as there was that I didn’t want to tell you, there was also so much that I couldn’t tell you.” I think I stopped thinking halfway through that rant, “Like what, man?” It’s almost as if he regretted asking that too. I could see it in his eyes. What could he see in mine? I stand there for a minute, the things I couldn’t tell him, I still can’t. And the things I didn’t want to tell him, I still don’t. “Hello? Great you’re just- tuning me out again.”

“What? Oh, um.-” I found his eyes again, “Ask- ask me anything.” He looks confused and I think I lost him. “Okay, how come I was never allowed to go to your house?” I stumble over my thoughts for a moment. I only really avoided it because Clover is weird. “I hate my aunt, and if I was gonna be in a good mood, it wouldn’t be in that apartment.” Without hesitating, Emmette’s next question rolls off the tongue. Not in a satisfying way, more so too soon, or too easily let off. “What’s the deal with your mom?”

“What?” The grass beneath my thin heels becomes like sand, so I struggle to stand. Holes poking into the Earth, reconstructing and breaking over and over. “My mom?” I am not ready to talk about this since this morning had already happened. “She’s in a coma. That’s all I can say.”

“Jesus, Elizabeth.” He sighs and rolls his eyes down to the sand grass. “What?” I sounded more distressed than I had intended. I searched his eyes for a possibility that I hadn’t screwed this up somehow. But then, anger. Why the hell should I have to tell him anything? “Forget it,” I spit and turn on my heel. “I shouldn’t have to explain my shit to any rich boy.” I can tell he’s surprised. I can hear an irritated gasp behind me as I storm off.

Now I’m pissed and have nowhere to direct my anger. I’m gonna go pick a bone with some kid. I walk past Alex, who's currently having a blast with a guy from our science class, I’ll never understand her joy in making highschool boys cry. Ironic, I’m about to go punch some guy’s lights out.

The garage is where the alcohol is left, so I assume that a lowlife drunken whore will be there. I stalk over and all the blood in my head is screwing with my thoughts and it’s hard to think straight. “Hey, jackass.” I spit a yard behind what looks like a kid named Henry. He turns around, a red cup of “punch” in his hand. I take a stance, feet a little farther apart, and get ready to swing. “Oh hey, what’s-“. I slug him right in the face and he stumbles back, the blood in my head stopped cartwheeling around and went straight to my hand in throbbing pain. “Well, that explains the thick skull.” I say, towering over Henry as he lies on the ground, his ass is wasted, sure if he was sober he’d beat my ass, today was my lucky day. Henry wipes his nose, which was now bleeding all over the concrete.

“Have a good night!” I holler, forming a heart with my hands. I guess I’ll walk home. “Tills!” A girl screams behind me, “Oh hey, Alex. You, so you didn’t see that right-“

“That was fucking amazing, you totally got his drunk ass!” Lexi hits my arm and smiles harder. “Wooh!” She lets out a loud exclamation as we head for the car. “This is a night to remember, Tilly.”

“What? The night I broke Henry’s nose for the second time?”

“Yes. Just exactly that.”