Tellers St

Chapter One-MADELINE

Fuck no.
"Mom I'm not getting into that car!" I growled and my, very stressed mother, growled back.
"Madeline Anne Snow! I will drive away without you! Good luck being homeless!"
"And good luck with your cracker of a boyfriend," I shot back and flared my nostrils. I crossed my 90's army jacket covered arms and cocked my hip out.
My mother glared at me with her dark brown eyes.
This intimidation didn't work. I knew what would happen. She'd sigh and start crying over the fact that I can't do anything right and I'm being complicated and blah blah blah.
My two younger siblings, twins of all things, started crying in the backseat.
"Look! Look Madeline look what you did!" Mom yelled and opened the back door to comfort my siblings.
Fuck this.
I began to walk away and that's when I heard my mom's angry voice and the sound of her taking off her shoe.
Fuck me. Ya know it wouldn't kill my mother to approach me in a more well mannered way. Her middle eastern/Asian parenting techniques can get her arrested here.
"Momma!" I yelped as she whacked me with her flip flop, which has that hard casing on the sole.
"Get in the goddamn car Madeline!" Mom hissed in Arabic and I obeyed.
Zero points for Madeline, Plus five for griffin-mom.
It always confused people when I told them my
Nationality.
"But you look white" They'd say and then I'd remind them that my father was semi-white.
Italian and Iranian.
My mother stopped her religious beliefs when she came to America at 19. She met my dad on the airplane here and found out he was a polyglot translator for an international banking company.
So he spoke over 12 languages including Arabic.
I only know a few phrases and words, I was never too included in speaking Arabic. My mother was afraid I'd get picked on here in Alabama, which still happened despite the ethnic cleansing.
But I was born in New York so nobody can deport me, assholes.
I slammed myself into the carseat and the brats in the back began to giggle at me.
I growled and turned away from my mother. I could feel her glare.
Ha, I'm gonna take a really long nap just so I don't have to talk to her.
I'm sure she's fine with that.
As mom put the car in drive and sped off from the house, I got a flash of our old colonial. It was a beige brick house with three floors, a first, a basement and a top. There's an attic too that I used to have sleepovers in but then mom put so much storage in there after the twins that I couldn't go up there anymore.
The whole thing with the twins is they are the product mom's new boyfriend James, the whitest name I've ever heard in my entire life.
James Whitman.
James Whitman...
Uuuuuugggghhhhhhhh...
I don't like him. I think he's replacing my dad, who was way cooler and a lot more fun than Jamesss.
Mom's new boyfriend works for a power plant in Oregon and has been working from home here in Alabama.
But he got a promotion somehow and they want him back in Oregon.
So that's where I'm heading.
Middle
Of
Nowhere Oregon.
Looking out along the old neighborhood that was my childhood, I stuck my earbuds in and blasted the most melancholy song I could think of.
I didn't really know how to feel about the move. Mom brought it up last minute and already had half the house packed up and in storage pods.
When I would come home from school the house would be clean to the nines and I would get yelled at for leaving a dish in the sink for too long.
"We gotta keep the house clean Madeline!" Mom used to hiss.
I always thought it was because of Jamesss but little did I know it was for the realtors.
It wasn't until I saw the for sale sign in our yard a week ago did I realize what was happening.
Our home was on the market and in only a week someone bought it.
It only took a week.
One fucking week...
Bastards...
I took my first steps in that house, said my first word, found my first best friend, had my first commercial Christmas there.
I remember the day my father took me to the secret spot by a river and that was where he bequeathed his old army jacket to me.
He had it from Vietnam, he was 18.
I remember him telling me he got recruited in 1974, the day after he turned 18.
He told me all the things he saw and witnessed. All the horrible acts that other soldiers did just because and all the children.
The children who were used as weapons, the innocent ones who clung to their mothers.
He told me he was sent home a year later. The war was over.
I miss my father.
I miss his stories and his smell. I miss how safe I felt when he'd hold me. I miss how he wasn't afraid of adventure even though he was a little older than most fathers.
I miss his laugh and his voice and his-
I felt myself give out a small sob and I hoped that the whining in the backseat was enough of a distraction for my mother. I didn't want her to see me cry.
I didn't want her to think I was soft.
Every time I let down my guard in front of people, got close and vulnerable, I would lose them. Some how and someway they'd be gone.
So I distanced myself from my mother. I distanced myself from my old friend group and I distanced myself from the world.
I'm not a cold person, but I find that people in general annoy the hell out of me a lot more than they used to.
Maybe it's my father. Maybe it's Emma. Maybe it's mom and those two hell raisers.
Whatever it is I hope that someone saves me from it. Or I might lose everyone I know.

***
Mom pulled up to a motel at 6:49 pm. We were already in Memphis. All those hours were behind us.
Jamesss had given mom the company card so she could rent motels and afford gas on our way there.
Why they couldn't just fly us out, I will never know.
It's bullshit and just seems like a waste.
Four economy tickets to Oregon please!
Cheaper than renting multiple motels and gas for a 37 hour drive!
It's gonna take us three days to get to Oregon. Maybe four if we waste time, which with the two brats in the back, will happen.
"Alright everyone out, we'll order pizza and crash here and then it's up at 6 so we can get to our next stop and get as much travel time in. We don't want to have to drive extra hours," Mom said and I got my basic travel bag from the trunk.
It had a change of clothes and my toothbrush and charger. I was just gonna sleep in what I'm wearing now.
Mom's not gonna be happy but I'm fine with that.
I could give less of a shit.
As we are making our way to the front of the check in building, I noticed they were selling the same army jacket I was wearing. But they were all knock offs and newer.
"Hi one room, two beds?" Mom asked and I looked around some more. I didn't take my earbuds out so now The Weeknd was blasting through the speakers.
I was so bored and tired from sitting all day that I didn't hear my mother thank the renter, who looked kinda like Micheal Keaton but pudgier, and take the keys.
I snapped back into reality and followed my mother and the hell raisers to our motel room.

Once inside the motel room I immediately felt vile rise in my throat. The room was disgusting. The wallpaper was peeling, the floor has a dark stain on it and the bathroom has an infestation of ants and cockroaches.
"Mom what kind of money are they giving you for this place?" I asked.
"I didn't want to spend a lot on motel rooms, I already feel bad for spending so much on gas-"
"Mom! They are RICH, take advantage of that card and buy yourself a five star hotel room! Or a three star, at least those won't have roaches..." I growled and settled onto the bed. Mom grunted and began to dial her phone to order the pizza and I sunk down into the bed I'd share with her.
Despite the fact that the motel looked and felt like trash, the beds were really comfortable.
That's probably where all their money is going.
"What kind of pizza do you want?" Mom asked.
"Just get plain, the two hell raisers don't give a shit-"
"Madeline!"
"What?? They don't, just look they're too busy watching some Disney crap," I pointed out and my mother just sighed and shook her head.
"Madeline what kind of pizza?" She asked, her shoulders slumping and I could tell she was exhausted.
"Plain with sausage"
"Ok"
And that was the last thing we said to each other the entire night. I ate my pizza and mom watched the news and got the hell raisers to bed.
I watched some youtube and scrolled through social media. Nothing too interesting. Got into some internet fights and trolled a shit ton of predators.
It's my favorite past-time.
As we got ready for bed, I tucked myself under the covers and curled up, putting my back to my mother.
Sleep felt almost impossible because I knew tomorrow would just be more hell.