Somebody to Hold Tonight (Larry Stylinson)

1

Our father was useless, as he was often fired from any job he managed to acquire. His drinking always seemed to cause some sort of a problem, but he never seemed to care. His one true passion in life was music. He and some of this friends formed a band when I was ten, and they'd been playing together ever since. It was the one thing my father cared about. It didn't even faze him that he was in his late thirties with four kids that needed to be fed and his wife was nowhere to be seen. I was usually lucky if I could wrangle a few spare dollars out of him to buy groceries. I had no idea how my mom ever held things together and managed to pay the bills.

Once she was gone and it became apparent I'd have to take on the adult role around the house despite having just turned seventeen, I had to step up and come to an agreement with my father. If he gave me half his check to pay for bills, he could have the rest to do with as he pleased. I wouldn't ask for more and I wouldn't complain. That was probably the only decent thing he ever did.

Simon Landry was our landlord. I'd say he was the scum of the earth, but that title was reserved for his son, Jyles. Honestly, Simon never did anything to me. In fact, I'm not sure he's ever done much of anything, really. He usually liked to sit in his house at the entrance to the trailer park in his favorite recliner with a beer in hand and a TV tray in front of him with a microwave dinner. I believe the concept of hygiene was beyond him. He always wore shorts with a stained wife beater. He was short, fat, and bald and married to a woman named Lauren who had an uncanny resemblance to Monica Geller and the man voice to boot.

As I've said, their son, Jyles, was the scum of the earth in my opinion. Since his lazy ass father had difficulty removing his rear end from his blue leather recliner, Jyles had the task of collecting rent each month. Whenever the first of the month came, I dreaded it. Regardless of what lengths I'd go to in attempts to evade seeing Jyles, he always seemed to be in the office when I came in to pay rent.

Jyles was annoying, foul, and horny, and to put it plainly, it had been his mission to try to get in my pants since I was thirteen. He was two years older than me, and I'd been interested for about five seconds before I woke up and realized how disgusting he really was.

Any day I had to encounter Jyles Landry was considered a bad day, so I didn't know whether to laugh or cry on the morning of September first when I woke up, looked at the calendar and realized not only was the rent due but it was also the first day of school for Lottie and Fizzy.

It wasn't unusual for my day to start before the sun was even out, but it didn't stop the groan from escaping my lips as I hit the alarm clock and rubbed my eyes sleepily before climbing out of bed. Lottie and Phoebe were still in their beds fast asleep. It seemed as if they'd trained themselves to sleep through the alarm. I had a feeling that was going to be a bad thing later in life.

I tiptoed through the dark room and grabbed my clothes from on top of my dresser. Setting them out the night before was now more out of habit than thought these days. My mom had been gone over two years, and many things had changed during that time and a new routine had been set. We had to have a routine. Lottie, Fizzy, and Phoebe needed some sort of order in their life. Even if I couldn't control all of the craziness in the outside world, at least I could make sure their mornings and nights made some sort of sense.

I slipped out of the room and made my way to the bathroom. It was small and cramped to most, but it was just a part of life in the Tomlinson residence. Everything was small and cramped. I had to get up at the crack of dawn to take a shower just to ensure Lottie would have enough hot water for a shower when she got up. Fizzy and Phoebe had to bathe the night before because the hot water supply just couldn't handle more than two people a night. We usually left our dad to his own devices. He was a grown man. He could shower when he wanted as long as it didn't interfere with our schedule.