Forgetting Me

02 | Encountering Emma

Blue Neighbourhood lyrics, he could relate. 

; 

"Trying hard not to fall, on the way home"
How extroadinarily relatable, Thaddeus thought bitterly.
Where is home?
Home had long gone.
Thaddeus replayed his every day and every night thoughts, memories that flooded his mind before sleep and penetrated sweetest dreams and darkest nightmare.
He thought of green fields. He and his parents  always had picnics on Saturdays when they were still happy, before everything went bad. Before I disappointed them, Thaddeus thought.
In his memories the sun was always beautiful. Mum was always loving (even when she was a busy doctor, she always made time for family), Dad was always sober and happy. They laughed and joked and played around like a regular family.
Of course, Thaddeus had to fuck that all up.
He couldn't be every bit the smart kid his mother wanted, producing mediocre results at best.
He couldn't be every bit the sportsman his father wanted, three strikes out in record speed.
He couldn't be what they wanted their child to be.
His father yelled at his weak son,
His mother's eyes grew red from crying, after hours of trying to teach her stupid, stupid son(she even had to take time  off of work to teach him), who still couldn't understand a thing.

They argued, of course.

Thaddeus began to see his mother less and less. She buried herself in work, to avoid his father. 

The quarrels continued. 

Thaddeus' lack of ability to play sports must come from Daphne's family, George's family were all born sportsmen.

Stupidity must be hereditary then. Thaddeus had the misfortune of inheriting George's pathetically small brain. 

Daphne only knew how to push the blame on others, did she stay home enough to know whats going on? To try to help nurture Thaddeus? Worthless mother.
SLAM! The door.
Daphne, Thaddeus' mother, had up and left, and never returned.
George, Thaddeus' father, was too proud to chase after Daphne the night she left, and he regretted it soon after. In the wee hours of the next morning he drove recklessly to the hospital where Daphne worked, only to find out that she had handed in her resignation letter and stopped working there. Daphne's relatives refused to speak to George and told him to leave her well enough alone.  

Daphne was gone from their lives, and gone for good. 

In a way, George had left Thaddeus too. He befriended alcohol and sex, and when the divorce papers came by mail, turned into a human ball of rage and mess. Eyes red and papers shredded, George continued and sank deeper into his lifestyle of drunk, women, drunk, women, to numb the throbbing pain of his broken heart.

George couldn't bear to look at Thaddeus. That much was obvious. His son was a mere reminder of what he lost and why he lost it, and he stayed out as much as possible.
The divorce papers kept coming in. George didn't have a paper shredder, yet week after week the papers became infinite shreds. Week after week he got weaker and weaker and the papers with one signature tore him apart just as much as he tore them. Eventually George simply gave up, and week after week identical envelopes piled up in the mailbox. 

One day, Thaddeus spotted George sobbing away, clutching his head and staring down at a fresh copy of divorce papers. With shaking hands George signed the papers.

Thaddeus was eleven, and yet 
The scars were all hidden, yet they were the ones that wrecked the most pain. 

Thaddeus withdrew into himself, and counted on art to relieve his frustration. It was the one thing he was good at, the one thing his parents never really approved of. Nevertheless, they let him be, and bought him countless art supplies. He drew happy things when they were all still happy, coloured shades of grey when the quarrels shook the house, and when everything crumbled to pieces-

He drew the stuff of his nightmares. 

Art became his only friend, after weeks of begrudging communication with his friends, they gave up trying to cheer Thaddeus up, and he was left all alone. 

Now he was in secondary school, already in his second year, and still, he had not made any friends since Orientation and all the bonding activities. 

He thought people were fake, pretentious and insincere. 

And if they were true, he was afraid of disappointing them, like how he disappointed his loved ones. 

When the school bus reached the Art Museum, Thaddeus awoke from his layers of thoughts and realised, that a tear had escaped from his eyes. 

He wiped it away on his jacket sleeve.