Community Service

Community Service | Part Twelve

 Community Service | Part Twelve

            When I wake up at six thirty on Sunday, I go through the same motions as the morning before: put on a different Arctic Monkeys shirt, grab my phone and a bag, and wash my face, splashing water on my face to reduce the red puffiness around my eyes. I don’t bother with any makeup, just scrub some sunscreen on my nose and cheeks.

            Before I leave the house, I peek into my mother’s room, which looks exactly the same as the night before, resignation papers lying carelessly on the nightstand accompanying a bottle of cheap red wine. She’s lying on the bed, passed out, and I quietly shut the door, not wanting to wake her.

            I grab a key lime pie yogurt from the fridge and stare at it. Memories of yesterday, driving while eating yogurt and laughing at Ross’ reaction, seem like they occurred years ago, and I shove the cup into my bag.

           Ross isn’t at the door and hasn’t called, so I assume that his pick-up truck’s been fixed and that he won’t need a ride from me anymore. This idea gives me some relief, thinking about having to spend even more time than necessary with him making me cringe. My new goal is to avoid him, the embarrassment and shame from the night before almost overwhelming.

            The drive is quiet, except for the radio playing softly in the background, and I eat my yogurt remorsely, trying not to remember the look of pain and sadness on my mother’s face as I wheeled her out of the hospital.

            I’m still emotional, even though I spent the entire night crying in my room. Everything from the past seventeen years seemed to bubble up last night, crying about my dad, about Anthony’s poisonous influence, about my mother’s inability to make choices for herself, about how she almost killed a pregnant woman by giving her the wrong drug because she was too drunk to grab the right one, about how everything seemed to be held together by me, I was tired, so tired of dealing with everything by myself.

             As I recollect the night before, tears prickled in my eyes, a couple falling into my lap and into my yogurt. Viciously brushing them away as I turn off the interstate, I take a deep breath and shake my head, trying to clear it of all the pain that was still stored in my heart.

            When I reach the dirt parking lot, I see Ross’ truck and automatically duck my head, parking my car as far away as possible. My hands are shaking as I pull the key from the ignition and shove it into my bag. Grabbing my phone and all of my trash, yogurt cup and plastic spoon, I exit my car and shut the door, trying to look at the dir ground and not at the boy who was walking towards me.

            “Hey Jenn.”

            I pretend I don’t hear anything, tucking some hair behind my ear and walking briskly to the trash can and dropping in my yogurt.

            “Jenn.”

            I wheel around, making eye contact with Ross as he looks down on me, just a foot away. There’s nowhere for me to go, the trash can right behind me, and all I can do it look at him with a weak smile on my face. He can see my blotchy face, I know, and the tears that are still swimming in my eyes, and it’s just so embarrassing.

            I hate showing any sign of weakness, and here I was, about to cry in front of the same boy I had the night before.

            “Jenn?”

            “Hi.”

           He looks confused, something I expected. He probably thinks that now that I’ve spilled my entire heart out to him, we’re best friends, bosom buddies, best buds, tight homies, but we’re not, and I’m trying to make that clear.