Man Down

Chapter one A fresh start It was Saturday September first, the air smelt of bacon and burnt French toast. Kristen Butcher was just getting out of her makeshift bed on her bedroom floor. It was moving day; the day Kristen had dreaded most. This was her childhood home, and today she’d be saying goodbye forever. Goodbye to the bright bubble-gum pink walls that her dad had painted for her fifth birthday, goodbye to the scribbled stick figure family portraits she had coloured with crayon on the wall, and more importantly goodbye to the life she loved. As she rolled up all the blankets she had placed on the floor she could hear the explicit language from downstairs in the kitchen, she crawled towards the crate in the floor Infront of her bedroom where she and her brother used to spy and spit on their parents when walking by. Her mother was standing by the stove scrapping the burnt toast off the pan into the dog’s bowl. Her mother, Melany Butcher was a stereotypical cigarette mom. Kristen never blamed her though Kristen got a kick out of giving her mom a hard time as a youngster and understood her mom needed a way to cope with her rowdy children. “Kay honey! Are you planning on getting out of bed today?” her mother called from the kitchen. Kristen dashed down the stairs and sat next to her dad and her younger brother. Her dad, Jason Butcher always smelt of stogies and old spice. He was a welder, he made tanks for the army. Kristen always thought that was cool, a definite upgrade from his previous job. Making portable toilets. “Glad you decided to get out of bed, we were going to leave you here.” Her dad chuckled, he thought he was so hilarious. “I wouldn’t have objected to that.” Her brother said looking up from his phone, Kristen stuck her tongue out at him and kicked him in the chin. If that was an option, she wouldn’t object either. “s**t!” her mother hissed from the kitchen. “Maybe if you put down the cigarette and the phone you wouldn’t be burning our breakfast.” Her dad chuckling again, again thinking he was hilarious. He turned to Kristen “zoe has been having a field day in her bowl this morning, hope she doesn’t get sick on the long car ride since shell be in the back with you.” He winked. Even though he was joking, Kristen didn’t find it very funny. He wasn’t the one that got puked on last car ride. She quickly got up to go help her mom before Zoe got any more human food in that bowl. Her mom was flipping the bacon in the pan with one hand and holding a cigarette in the other. her mom was very petite and had the prettiest strawberry blonde hair that Kristen always wanted. Unfortunately, she got stuck with her dad’s genes, jet black hair, dark brown eyes and ridiculously pale freckled skin. Kristen always thought her mom was so beautiful, she never understood just how her dad tricked her into marrying him. “Morning mom do you need some help?” Kristen asked. “Oh kay! You’re out of bed, yes that would be great thanks.” She said looking relieved. “Here, you flip the French toast.” Kristen took the pan from her mom and grabbed a spatula from the drawer. She turned over to look at her mom whose cigarette ash was about to fall into the bacon. “Mom, you're going to get ash in the bacon.” Kristen warned. “Ugh sorry, little ash never killed anybody though.” She sighed as she turned to ash her cigarette into the ashtray. “that’s disgusting mom, also you have the burner too high no wonder you keep burning the French toast. “Oh, my goodness Kay! You’re just as bad as your father.” She said taking the spatula from Kristen’s hand. “Go sit at the table I can handle making my family breakfast.” Kristen rolled her eyes and went back to sit with her dad, her brother’s eyes still glued to his phone and her dad now also glued to his phone watching f*******: reels and laughing unnecessarily loudly. Kristen took out her phone and looked at the time, already 11:30. She bumped her dad’s arm to get his attention and showed him the time. He held up a finger making her wait until the end of the video he was watching and then turned his head and looked over his glasses to see the time on her phone. “Oh s**t,” he said. “Honey! Is breakfast almost done? We have to load up the truck in thirty minutes.” “Ugh I give up,” her mom replied from the kitchen. “Just grab some bacon I guess; we can stop on the way.” All three of them looked at each other and raced to the kitchen to get to the bacon first. As always Kristen and her brother got stuck in the doorway of the kitchen and their dad came up chuckling behind them. He pulled both out and put them on the ground, he stepped over them and grabbed all the bacon and gave their mom a big disgusting kiss. Kristen and her brother both pretended to gag. “Kids, go upstairs and grab whatever is left in your room and get it downstairs at the front door.” Their mom giggled as their dad was kissing her neck. Kristen and her brother gagged the whole way up the stairs. She got to her room and shut the door behind her, looking around the room one last time. The overwhelming feeling of sadness filled her entire body, she walked over to her bedroom window and opened it letting the warmth from the sun comfort her. She hoped the new house would have a window in her room that pointed to the sun, mom and dad had talked about moving for a really long time. Her mom was tired of the small town, Kristen never thought they would actually leave but I guess her dad’s job being relocated was the push they needed to go through with it. For weeks her mom had been trying to sell her on the house with promises of a big yard, with a pool, and a tire swing. It would have appealed to younger Kristen, but she was a senior now her focus was on boys and friends. She had already said goodbye to her friends and broke it off with her boyfriend, which wasn’t very difficult to do because they had been growing apart for a while. She gathered her things and headed downstairs where she found her parents fighting about how to transport the dinning room table. Mom wanted to take it apart to maximise space in the truck and dad wanted to keep it together to keep his to do list small at the new place. She quickly slipped through the chaos to place her box in the truck. She sat on the curb, looking around one last time at her neighbourhood. Memories of riding her bike with the neighbourhood kids filled her mind, scratching the scar on her knee from when she got stung by a bee and out of a panic fell on the sidewalk, the bike landing on top of her. “Logi! Help your father take the dining room table to the truck please.” Called her mom from the house. a disgruntled dad walked out of the door holding the top of the table, it appeared mom had won that argument once again. Following her father came her brother logan, holding the legs of the table. Mom came after with zoe holding on tightly on her leash, zoe was a runner. She watched her mom lock the door and placed the keys in the mailbox. Kristen looked up at the house and shed a single tear, her dad saw this and wrapped one arm around her. Their mom joined the embrace, logan was playing with his phone. Sometimes Kristen wondered how he had survived this long. “Ok guys enough with the sadness” demanded her dad “the new place is ten times better than this place.” I certainly didn’t think so. “How about when we get to the place you and I go to the mall?” her mom asked in a very sympathetic tone. “There might be cute city boys at your new school to impress!” Disgusting. They all headed into the truck and began the long drive to their new life.