Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (Jalex)

Fourteen - No Control

I straightened in my chair as the front door handle shook, someone pushing it down without realizing it was locked. May. Everyone else went straight for their key; my sister liked to think that it would be open and she wouldn't have to rifle through the gum wrappers and dried out Expo markers in search of a key. It never was. 

I almost always beat my sister home, even though we went to the same school and got out at the exact same time. She preferred to stay after the bell rang and chat with her friends for twenty minutes – you know, like a normal high school student with an actual social lives – while I immediately made a break for the exit and shoved my ear buds in as soon as I could. Seven hours per day was more than enough of my peers.

I always clicked the lock into place once more after trudging inside from my car, more out of habit than anything else – it had been drilled into me from the time I turned twelve and was determined old enough to stay home alone, that the door must always be securely locked if there wasn’t an adult in the house. And while I doubted that anyone would even bother breaking into the Barakat residence, old habits die hard. Or, in many cases, not at all.

The door rattled open, my sister shrugging her backpack off before stepping into view, a single ear bud plugged in while the other hung down in front of her t-shirt

“’Sup Jack?” she called with a grin, eyes moving from me in my favorite corner chair, with my beaten up Converse and socks dumped on the floor and school supplies spread around me, to the TV in the corner playing Wall-E. I was starting to get to the point where I could recite that movie line for line, but it was cute and I needed background noise while I worked, mindless television serving as the perfect antidote for that necessity. I liked my music loud and had a bad tendency to turn it up until it captured my focus – something I cared less about was always safer.

“Not much, bro,” I responded, returning her smile as May chuckled and ran off to the kitchen. We had an odd relationship. I literally could not remember the last time I’d discussed anything serious with my sister, but the joking attitude we had around each other was fun and relaxing. At least we were better than those siblings who were constantly bickering - being brother and sister, petty fights were inevitable, but we just ignored each other for a day and then continued on like there had never been a spat over who had to wipe down the table after dinner. 

Truly, I’d love to have someone I could have deep,  contemplative discussions with, but a suitable person didn’t seem to exist. Anytime I said anything semi heavy or thought provoking, there was always a strong suspicion at the back of my mind that whoever couldn’t care less about the topic of conversation. Always an extremely effective way to kill my enthusiasm for talking about something. If only there was someone who had the same variety of disconnected, erratic interests that I did.

May reemerged a moment later with a glass of bubbly fruit soda – she drank the stuff like fish gulped water – and a plate of leftover spaghetti from last night. It looked like enough for an entire dinner, rather than after school snack, but she’d fallen into the same unreliable, sketchy eating habits as me long ago. She just didn’t have enough time to make meals in the morning; was too busy getting speed dressed in five minutes and sprinting out the door after consistently oversleeping.

I skipped the day’s early meals because I preferred spending time on making myself somewhat presentable and staying wrapped in my happy bubble of blankets as long as possible, even though I was always fully awake as soon as my alarm went off, with a zero percent chance of falling back asleep. Not once had I slept later than intended, something that would be good, if that fact couldn’t be attributed to my stupid sleeping habits.  I always took at least half an hour to fall asleep at night, even when I was dead exhausted. I usually was, too, despite the fact that I was knocked out from ten to six every day.