Hell School

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

   like an adventure in summer...

 For the first time I was happy my 7am alarm rang. No school. No worries. Although I still miss being the class genius, but here I am. I was still trying to get over yesterday's awful history, especially my mother's tears, when I heard a zoom in front of our house. I looked out my window and saw Ronald and two guys car racing in the street. 

 He is getting over it well. And I realized that is what I have to do as well. Not necessarily car racing, I just have to do something fun. I switched on my laptop to find something doing.

 My stomach growled. s**t! I have not eaten since I came back from school yesterday. The last thing I remembered after coming back from school tired, with my feets sore from the long walk, my knuckles bruised, and my conscience stricken is patting my mother to sleep on the couch.

 She must have brought me upstairs to my room, and yet still able to make it to work.

 A car honked by my window. I ignored, thinking it was just a passing car. Then it honked louder and longer. I looked out the window, then saw Ronald in the race car, he didn't stop honking even after he saw me. Show off. 

 I ignored him and closed the window, pulled my curtain together and put on my headphone. I could still hear his honking through the headphone and I got mad. I looked out the window again and imagined him with a taut smirk glued to his scrawny face. 

 "What is it?" I yelled at him. His friends stood by chatting and placing bet on races. He wore the leather coat I bought him as a gift last year's Hell week celebration.

 He stopped the honk, then got out of the car. He placed his right hand on the car, "you wanna hangout?" He asked.

 I couldn't believe my ears. Hangout. Really? I turned back about to close the window then he said, "sorry." I changed my mind and gave him my attention.

  "I'm sorry how I did you at the station, at school and everything," he said with a remorseful look, while his friends now fixed their eyes on us. "I am sorry for what I said yesterday, I shouldn't have said such a thing to you and you have always been a good friend to me - the best I've got," he went on, making my eyes water and my heart flutter, "you care if I make it up?" 

 His words melted me completely, leaving me stupefied. He really got me with those pitiful eyes once again. And at that moment I felt guilty for hitting him, but I wasn't going to apologise, I'll just live with it.

 I cleared my throat, "busy right now, maybe some other time," i said hiding my guilt and pity for him. 

 "What about twelve, we going skateboarding at the park," he said.

 Skateboarding. He really knows me. He must have chosen the coat and the park on purpose as props for his apology. I just won't appear cheap this time around.

 "Yeah, maybe, I'll try." I shut my window and saw him smile. 

I smiled also. I wasn't sure if he was true with his apology, but I just need something to get over the sorrows of my foolishness.

 I went to the kitchen, and saw my food in the microwave. My mother has always looked out for me and I won't be missing when it is time for me to do the same. 

 I took the food and gobbled it up like a prisoner in recession. I sat on the couch directly opposite the one I patted my mother. I looked directly at the frame my mother held tight to her chest back on the wall. 

 "Father," I whispered softly, put my spaghetti down and sauntered to the wall. I brushed my hands across his wide grin. He was in his lab coat looking through a microscope, with his lab goggles tightened to his eyes. His smile has always inspired me to want to know what he saw and in sixth grade I saw it. Maybe not what he saw, but I had the same grin when I saw the structure of an atom. It was then I gave up my mother's medical career and chased hard after my father's physics.

 His beard was soft and succulent. Smooth as a baby's bottom. Even in the picture I still felt his beard oil trickling down my hand. 

 The clearest memory I had of him was the day he left. We just came back from the park, the three of us, as a family. I was scared of rolling on skates, then he held my hands and rolled together with me. We fell and his six year old son dashed a handful of snow on his face. He reciprocated it and we didn't stop. 

 He gave me a piggyback ride back home. 

 In the night, he laid me to sleep, after reading to me the uncertainty principle of Heisenberg. I saw my mom place her hand on his shoulder, both of them gay as ever. I smiled at them and shut my eyes. That was all I could remember, the next morning he was gone and never visited.

 I wiped the tears rolling down my face. My phone vibrated, a message.

 It was Franklin. Damn. I totally forgot about him.

Franklin:

Will you be coming to the lab? Heard you are on suspension.

 How the hell did the suspension of a two time all A's student of Meldow high get leaked? Ha. Who am I kidding.

 I replied him a no. I gotta hangout with my downfall - Ronald. Since my father's departure in winter thirteen years ago, I have not stepped the community park. I have not smelled its air, felt its sand or snow, sniffed its fragrance. It is definitely going to be a new experience to me, like an adventure in summer. And thanks to Ronald, I will experience it again -- my father's last day.