Replaceable Timelines: Book 1. [COMPLETED]

Chapter 6: Subtle.

After saying my goodbyes, or whatever it was that I did, I leave the school.

I still didn't find my keys, but that's fine. I'm sure Mom will cut me a new set anyway. I feel so hungry. I didn't eat much today and barely kept hydrated. I could collapse the second I get home.

While walking home, the sun is still high in the sky. The shadows along the buildings have switched their orientation as the sun's arc changes in the sky. The mid-day orange glue seems to envelop the entire landscape. And its glow is situated my way as I walk along the street to home.

There's a lot of traffic starting to pick up at this time, I guess most people's jobs clock-out times would be around 4:30 to 5 P.M. I wonder if Dad is home already, but I'm doubtful he is.

As I'm walking home, I don't think too deeply about the details of the surrounding area, I've seen the same scenery so often that it's not very interesting to me. I do take note of a home that's about five minutes from my place though, Me and Austin would steal crab apples from their backyard and throw them at oncoming traffic for fun. Sometimes we'd eat the apples too.

Nothing else interesting catches my eye though.

It feels like I've been hit with a burst of exhaustion, I keep my eyes closed for the most part on the walk home, hoping that I'll teleport to my bed somehow.

Bed.

Right, I had a weird dream this morning. I don't think it really matters anymore though; I can't help but have this nagging feeling in my core that I'm forgetting something very important.

After making it home, I enter through a backstreet behind my place. There are a few interconnected homes, or duplexes. I'll just say it like it is, they're the projects. Low-income homes were made for low-income people like our family. Not that I think that's a bad thing, Mom always said that we weren't rich, but we were rich on love. I believe it, the amount of effort she's put into raising me and Thea, and her husband as well. Because I can say for certain that he wasn't a part of the child-rearing portion of the family.

There could be a tinge of resentment for him because of it, but things like anger towards a parent won't help me to progress and flourish in my own life and make my own family someday. Probably, I'm just trying not to think about big problems while on a journey to my bed.

When I finally make it to the wooden fence behind the house, I tip-toe to see above the planks of wood and unlock the metal locking mechanism. It's not a real lock, it looks like one of those keys that come with spam. Just a hook that anchors into a metal ring.

When I placed my hands on the top of the wooden plank, I got a splinter stuck in my right-hand ring finger. Gross, I hate foreign objects inside me.

That sounded worse than it needed to be.

Opening the door, I'm met with a densely covered cement pathway. It's covered in overgrown weeds; the whole backyard is overgrown. You can't see much besides grey blocks of cement underneath green blades of grass.

We have a basement window on the house, and while looking through the grass, you can narrowly see the glint of the glass reflecting the blue sky above me.

The backyard is ugly, there's a porch at the end of the pathway, but I wouldn't call it a porch either. It's just a few planks of wood that go up 2 steps to the door.

I wanna fix this up, maybe cut the grass and make it presentable. I should've done this a long time ago, one of the kitchen windows is looking into the backyard, I don't know why we look at this unattractive yard when we eat our supper. Mom would probably appreciate it being arranged more neatly.