The Daycare (An Age-Reggresion Story)

Chapter 1 - Being Normal is Fun

With both hands I reached forward and grasped the cup before me, pulling it off the display hook. I turned it over as I studied the small cute star designs. There was something so cute and quaint about children's sippy cups that drew me to them. I'm not sure if it was the bright, inviting shades of pink, blue, yellow, and purple, or the little star print that smiled back. I thought for a moment how nice it would be to have one, even if just for myself, but felt my smile quickly drop.

"Why am I so weird?", I mumbled for a moment under my breath and decided to return the item to the hook. I worked at the same retailer for two years now, and always found myself stopping whenever I was around anything for children or babies. For years now I have written off this attachment as a so-called 'baby-fever', but I felt like it was more than that. Not only did I not want a child but I also felt like adult clothes were more boring and didn't hold the same spark as children's clothes did. Plus, most of it was too revealing or dull. Most of the smaller spoons, forks, and plates were something I would look at sometimes also. Who am I kidding, I wanted anything that was meant for children, and children's stuff is not meant for a 20-year-old.

"Aurora!", my shrill manager's voice interrupted my thoughts. "Are you going to stand there all day in the baby section or are you going to clock out?", she quipped. I nodded without looking at her and walked in the direction of the clock-out machine. I was mildly afraid of fighting back with my superiors, it felt foreign. To be honest, fighting back wasn't a strong suit of mine and breaking the rules was not an option, I was too much of a goody-two-shoes. I felt embarrassed for an instant as I realized I was stuck in my thoughts again and rushed over to the machine. 

I punched out quickly, grabbed my personal items, and headed to my beat up black car. It was a quick drive to my home, as there wasn't much traffic at seven pm. The apartment building I resided in loomed before me as I pulled into the parking lot. It was a nice set of apartments, they all were stacked up on a steep drive up a mountain, rows and rows of the same copy-paste buildings. They were massive, all this beige brick color, and housed about 12 apartments per building. Top floors were accessible by staircases, bottom ones by sidewalks. It ensured everyone had a front porch of some sort, but over all they were lovely. My mother and I were located on a bottom floor, so we had a nice little awning from the upstairs neighbor's porch.  

 When I unlocked the door to the shared apartment, I was startled by my mother who had taken a chair from the dining room and had placed it in the living room, facing the entrance. I felt a sick feeling hit my stomach, but I forced a smiling face. My mother, on the other hand, did not return the smile. Her face was turned into a scowl, and she had her scrawny arms crossed in front of her. I shared no resemblance to my mother, other than her button nose, which framed her face in a way that made her look years younger. Her dirty-blond hair was streaking gray already, and her blue eyes were sharp. She had a few beauty marks on her face, and her lips were a thin angry line. She was much skinnier than me and shorter, but she could strike fear in me any day. She was pretty in her own way, but when her anger came out it took that away. 

"You realize you forgot the dishes last night", she said in a nasty tone. She lifted herself from her chair and walked over to meet me. I let my face fall into a blank expression, knowing it wouldn't do any good anyway to make any face at all. When she got to me, the size difference was obvious. She was a small woman, standing only 5 feet tall, while I stood a whole half foot taller. I was insanely jealous of her height. It made her seem younger, while mine made me look like a giant. At least that's what I thought. I turned, set my jacket on a hook near the door, and went to open my mouth for a response.

"I don't want to hear it. I pay for your food, I raised you, I made you into the woman you are, and I have to remind you almost every night like you're five!", she scolded me. I felt myself sink back, mentally and physically into the door, hoping it would swallow me. "You say you forget all the time, but your room is clean! How can you remember that but not the dishes? You also didn't fold my clothes as I asked you to, clean the toilet, or mop the floors." It happens like this every night. I get home, she gets mad about things I haven't done, goes on a rant, then I do whatever she asks anyways. I do so much every day, and she still adds on more. The worst part of this all is she doesn't have a job, she just lives off the government by using assistance. She blamed the joblessness on her mental health, but I'm the one who pays the bills, she just supplies food stamps. It's a difficult situation but I can't get out of it, all my money goes to bills. I felt hot tears prickle in my eyes as I tried to stay calm.