TOMMY MASON || HS

I n t r o || G r i e f

Authors Note: The first few chapters will be off to a slow start but the story will start escalating. Give it a chance.

Brentwood. Pennsylvania, USA. 01743

___

He rode with his windows down. Tommy Mason. I remember what it felt like. I would raise my hands and feel the breeze going into the roots of my hair. Gosh, I would scream in the realization that I felt freedom and life. Tommy Mason was good at that, he could make a dead corpse feel alive again.

__

Death isn't Subtle in the West of Brentwood. East Brentwood has always been perfect. People living to there hundreds and teenagers who can actually drive.

If we could have afforded the cost of living in West of Brentwood, my father would've moved us there a long time ago but he was a barely-surviving author and mom was an artist at the studio in the in-betweens of West and East Brentwood

I, however , didn't care for either Brentwood personalities. Whichever Brentwood we lived in, it wouldn't stop my father from dying because my father died at the inbetweens of both Brentwoods only a foot away from the Art Studio my mom was working in at the time.

Mom rushed outside when she heard the crash. She knew dad was coming to take her out to eat during her lunch break, she saw the car full of familiarity, and then my mom and my dads epic love story was over.

And my father was dead.

My father was fucking dead. I had to process it for weeks. Sometimes I still heard his voice and I could feel him stroking my hair as I cried in his arms like when Robert the bunny died in his cage in the third grade.

After I processed it I was angry. The anger exploded like a shaken can of soda. I had to see the stupid, happy faces of kids in school getting picked up by their fathers. I watched fathers and daughters taking a morning jog. And all I wanted to do was scream. ALL I WANTED WAS TO CLIMB UP A MOUNTAIN AND SCREAM OUT TO THE TOP OF MY LUNGS!

I was so fucking angry, my head was spinning. My body was shaking and when my knees gave in I fell to the floor and I cried. I cried for hours and that was my grieving.

I would shiver in my sleep and I'd wake up wiping tears while I dreamed of the days where my father was still alive.

When I woke up the few seconds of being awakened I would think he was still here and my heart would start shattering when those few seconds were over.

I stopped going to school. Mom wasn't functioning right and I didn't want to function. I started becoming a stay at home student. Being homeschooled by a tutor that would come in for a few hours a day.

Mom would be upstairs in silence. I couldn't hear a cry. I never heard a footstep. Sometimes I wondered if she had ever eaten since my fathers death or if the only supply of water she was getting were the tears that would drip into her mouth.

One day I woke up at 4 o'clock in the morning and I heard her footsteps. They were so very light you could only hear them with absolute silence.

I smiled, that was the first I had smiled in months. I wanted my mom to be okay. It was amazing to know that she was.

The next few months it was the same 4 o'clock munching and the sound of the showers. But that was the only improvement she had made.

And the process slowed till it stopped. It was as if she relieved the death scene all over again and I had lost the last glimmer of hope I had in myself for her.

"I think it'll be good for you to go back to public school." Stephanie, the tutor, said as she checked my math work.

"My mom needs me here, besides I haven't had much human interaction lately." I told her stroking my arm to comfort myself. Besides Stephanie and  Old Jams Grocery Store, where a handful of people ask me how my mother is as well as me, I don't talk much to people in town.

"Your mom would be happy to know your going back to school and socializing with people your age wouldn't you think?"  Stephanie checked more of the answers on my papers. I'm doing better with a tutor than I've ever done in school since I entered middle school.

"I'm sure she would." Stephanie said. She smiled and looked at me. Stephanie was pretty young for the amount of experience she has, she's been out of college for five years and could be working as a teacher for a high school but instead she tutors home school students who are going through rough transitioning.

She's been everywhere. From Nevada to Florida from Florida to New York from New York to Brentwood Pennsylvania.

She put her straight sleek black hair behind her ears. Her almond eyes narrowed whenever she smiled and she smiled a lot. "Great job, Madden. If you do go to a public school, I would recommend Mathletes."

---

A/N

Hello, I'll be trying to post at least once or twice a week. If there's no chapter up you can follow me and I will most likely have a status of why I haven't posted as well as an apology. Vote, Comment, Follow.

Thank you for reading ;)