Across From Me

Thirty Two

Beth had a lot of patience. Enough to make it infuriatingly so. But Beth was angry. A wave of slow-building anger that started to fester over weeks of being left alone. One more thing, one more rude comment, and Beth didn't know how much she could handle.

But Beth was tired too. Instead of listening to any comments, she simply got lost in her head. She drifted through the school day, only to come home to a house of people who seemingly hated each other. At least at this moment. Or she would either come home to nothing at all. Just silence.

After a long and painful day of watching Clementine make new friends and move on without her, the last thing she wanted was to come home to a fight. Luck was never on her side, and especially not lately. So it's exactly what she came home to that day. Even when her under eyes were heavy with grief from the heavy and unkind reminder that Clementine no longer needed her.

"You're insane! You're literally fucking crazy!" She could hear Violet's shouting already from inside the house. Beth wanted to turn around and run away. Beth stood there, feet planted in the driveway, feeling the warm sun beat down on her, but a cold tickle of fear on the back of her neck. Beth couldn't help it, yelling inspired fear in her that she had no idea where it came from.

Looking back over to Clementine's house, Beth hoped to find any sort of comforting feeling. She only got a hollow feeling in her stomach looking at it, knowing Clementine was inside, knowing Clementine was ignoring her. Beth wondered if the neighbors could hear them arguing. They probably could, just from where Beth was standing. Violet and their mother never went for discretion in their arguments.

"I'm the one who's crazy?! And that's coming from the girl who can't go a day without smoking or drinking! You're a goddamn mess!" Beth's mother shouted back. Beth opted to sit on the chairs by the front door and wait for the confrontation to pass. As much as Beth loved her sister, she wasn't willing to go into the firestorm that was her mother when she was angry.

Beth could hear slamming doors, and she tried her hardest to cover her face in her backpack. She wrapped her arms around it and held it close to her body, feeling books and her binder dig into her arms and stomach. There was more muffled shouting, until stomping that was clearly Violet came closer, "Yeah and who caused that?! You! You have always been the problem in this fucking family! So no fucking wonder I smoke and drink! You do a better job at sleeping with the men at your workplace than you did ever parenting us!"

Same old, same old, Beth thought. It had to get redundant at some point? Maybe one day they would get tired of the same arguments, the same confrontations with the same endings every time. Or perhaps they would find new things to pick apart about each other, to insult and criticize. New things her mother would find wrong in even the smallest of moves, or the slightest word would set Violet off on a rant again.

"I do my best, Violet! I put food on the table, clothes on your back and you repay me by stealing my fucking money!" Her mother shrieked back, her voice echoing through the halls and straight into Elizabeth's ears, "You have always been ungrateful for what I've done for you! No one else in this family causes problems as you have! Ever."

Beth could hear her sister laughing, more in a mocking tone, "Oh yeah just because I'm not an ass kisser like Lizzie means that I always cause the problems!" Beth shivered at Violet's use of her old nickname. Violet stopped using it years ago, Beth never figured out why she stopped. She didn't even understand why Violet was using it now.

"Don't bring your sister into this because of mistakes you made," Her mother replied in a dangerous, cold voice, "None of this has anything to do with Elizabeth or Charlie. It always has to come down to you and your problems," There was a type of anger that came out in her mother's voice that Elizabeth had only heard a few times before, and that was at the end of her mother and father's relationship.