The Bad Boy and Faith

Chapter 3: I Don't Care

I actually did care. I cared more than I let on.

It was my ultimate flaw.

Every little thing got to me, even the smallest things, such as the tiny remark my mom made. It didn't matter how insignificant it was to someone else, because it meant a lot to me. How people felt about me, whether or not I was doing things to upset them or hurt them in any way. It all mattered to me.

I prided myself on being different, but I didn't pride myself on being a people-pleaser and someone who cared about what everyone else thought.

This is exactly why I wouldn't be able to cross the threshold of my house ever again, because I was pretty certain my next door neighbors thought I was an entire creep.

I shuddered at the thought of the interaction and my cheeks flushed a deep red once again out pure embarrassment from the thought alone.

After blatantly staring into their backyard and making unavoidable eye contact with the mysterious guy beyond the gate, I was transfixed. Not transfixed in a memorized way but transfixed as in I'm in deep s**t kind of way. Like my foot is stuck in a bucket that is filled to top with s**t, and for some reason it won't come out.

I was stuck, rooted to my spot, unable to pry my eyes away from his. This wasn't a romantic moment, it was quite the contrary. We were enemies and I was on the losing side. I was preparing myself to face my death and I stood proud and foolish. We stood staring at each other for 30 seconds straight. And that's a long time in eye contact world.

"Theo... what are..." The half naked girl trailed off as she took the place of the unknown male. She was now in my peripheral, but I long since learned my lesson about eye contact, but I had yet to learn my lesson about my fight or flight response. I guess the only people I knew to run from were bitches A through D. Now I was standing there rooted to my spot avoiding all eye contact.

It took my mother's voice from inside the house yelling to get me to acknowledge the fact that I was still human and wasn't, in fact, dreaming.

"FAITH WHERE ARE YOU?" My mom roared angrily, this usually meant she was about five steps away from blacking out and could possible harm herself on the way down. That's why I tried to be there to catch her.

"UH..." That was all I said before I ran. I hightailed it out of there. I nearly toppled over trying to open the door of the house. I think they saw that too. Once I reached my angry mother in the kitchen, I collapsed onto a nearby chair. "Yes mother?" I said out of breath.

"Where have you been? I need you to..." Her sentence ended as she nearly collapse onto the floor, but I was there to catch her and drag her towards the couch in the living room.

I stared down at her helplessly, her face flushed a deep red, her mouth parted slightly and her black curls in dissaray. I felt for my mother, I truly did. She had been through so much, with her own father abandoning her and my father as well. I'm sure she had abandonment issues. She hated when I didn't come home immediately after school and she hated when I wasn't around to help her when she needed it.

I didn't understand her pain. Not only did her own father and her husband abandon her, but her mother as well. So she had been stuck growing up in her grandmother's house never having the chance to form a real relationship with her mother. And the times she spent with her mother would be depressing to say the least.

My mother hadn't really went into detail about her past, but the times she had, she would be in the stage between blackout drunk and tipsy. I don't know if I'd ever see the day my mom would be truly happy again, that thought alone saddened me, so I trudge up the stairs in great despairs, my limbs getting harder to maneuver the closer I got.

I fell onto my bed, fully clothed and fell into a deep slumber, dreaming of mysterious males and half naked girls. And not in the sense that you think. Half naked girls that wanted to tie me to a chair and force me to stare into random people's eyes.

***

I was fat. I ate alot, but there would be times when I would completely forget to eat. When I did, I ate a lot. I binged alot and it would usually be during a depressive episode and this was one of those. After such a bad couple of days in Seattle I figured the best way to deal with these emotions were to eat.

I had had such a bad couple of days, the least I could do for myself was shower myself in dilectible treats.

In order to binge, I needed to go grocery shopping, because our pantry and fridge had next to nothing in them. My mom had also failed at her motherly duties, such as providing me with food, but that was something I found myself doing often. After I turned 12 I stopped expecting dinner every night.

If I was hungry I cooked for myself and even for my mom sometimes. I didn't mind cooking or grocery shopping, those where the most interesting things occurring in my life. All I did was go to school and came home immediately after. I didn't think too much about, because it usually depressed me to think about where my life could be if I had friends, a job or a participated in extra curricular acfivities. And depression lead to more eating and eating lead to gaining more weight. The cycle never ended.

I was casually scrolling through our local super market, looking for healthy alternatives. I was fat and ate a lot of junk, but I always made sure to encorpate some form of fruit and veggies. I could eat a bag of Blaze Doritos in one sitting, but also eat an entire plate of asparagus or green beans in another.

You had to have a balance. I also tried not to drink a lot of sodas, plus that compromised my binging episodes and gave you acne.

I was already fat, the last thing I needed was acne clinging to my fat face. Fat and acne were two things that just didn't go. Specifically when it came to me. Because my face was pretty moderate, but with the added acne I was, what the milennials called, ugly. I would go from a solid 4 to a -1 on the how-attractive-you -are-to-your-peers scale.

My acne clad face aside, I was heading to the car after about 2 hours of grocery shopping because I liked to take my time. Like I said, grocery shopping and cooking were the highlights of my day. And the more I said that the more I realized how similar my life was to that of a 40 year old married women with three kids, with no job and a rich but, unfortunately, cheating husband.

It was sad, that I was a teen without a life. Even going to school was exciting for me.

Once I loaded the groceries into the car I remembered I forgot eggs and headed back into the store. Call it a stroke of luck, not for me, but for the devil himself, I was forced to have yet another social interaction. I didn't mean the interaction with the cashier, maybe I did, but that wasn't the problem at the moment. As I was heading towards the eggs at the speed of road runner I nearly collided with someone swiftly turning the corner adjacent to the placement of the eggs.

It would've been an okay day if I hadn't ran into them. Actually I would say my day was great before that fiasco occurred. I had managed to completely repressed the memory of the situation that occurred the day prior and was obviously happy. Well I wouldn't label this as the best day ever. But it could've been worse.

And it did get worse, because the poor girl I ran into happen to be the girl I seen next door. It was hard to forget the girls eyes, they were a vibrant hue of blue, prominent among all her other physical attributes. They shone in the darkest places and they looked so kind and genuine. I usually didnt know how to interact with people like her.

Her pouty red lips were slightly parted and he cheeks were tinted a light pink and her bright blue eyes were wide. Her dark, curly hair rested on her bare, tanned shoulders. She looked pristine, pampered and prepared for just about any disaster to occur.

She let out a small yelp before leaping away from the spealing items. Her fruits and veggies lie sprawled across the floor and a look of horror rested on her face. Her hands immediately went to her nose to ensure her glasses rested properly on her face.

It took me thirty seconds to register the items that split on the floor, and like a reflex I dropped to my knees to gather the girls items. My cheeks flushed a deep red out of embarrassment for my clumsiness.

"I'm so sorry." We both said in unison unintentionally, only I was nearly yelling and she whispered. I looked up to catch a glimpse of her face and she was staring directly at me in confusion. 

"You look very familiar, do I know you?" She asked. I tried my best to give a genuinely confused face but I failed miserably the deeper she looked into my eyes. I nearly teared up because my cover was blown and a look of recognition immediately appeared on her face, and her lips parted in shock.  "Um why didn't you say anything the other day?" She tilted her head slightly as her big eyes widened in confusion. 

I blushed furiously and attempted to keep up my confused act. "Um... excuse me? Sorry for dropping your items." I was about to turn around but she placed her tiny hand on my shoulder. 

"Sorry we scared you yesterday." She said as she grabbed her basket and walked away. I chew nervously on my bottom lip and grabbed a carton of eggs, quickly paid for them and sped home. 

When I got my home, unsurprisingly my mom was passed out again on the sofa. I could feel the sadness slowly building within me, so I grabbed whatever food that would sustain me for the night while I watched sad chick flicks and rom-coms.

___ 

I was currently mentally preparing myself to face my inevitable doom which was my first day of school in Seattle. It was 6 a.m. and I was contemplating whether or not I wanted to wear natural makeup to school or go completely drag.

There wasn't an in between. I was an all-or-nothing kind of girl. Because I didn't want to seem like I was trying hard, I went for natural makeup and left my curls hanging down my back.

After doing my makeup as quick as possible, which took an hour, I got dressed and headed down stairs to fix myself a quick breakfast, a bowl of cereal. My usual attire consisted of all black, but 

I didn't condemn myself to only black, there would be rare and ominous days when I would choose the pastel clothing in the back of my closet. But those days were every full moon. After gurgling down a small bowl of cereal, because anything more probably would come back up, I headed to school. 

My usual means of transportation consisted of walking everywhere. The distance to school was no more than four blocks, which meant the walk wouldn't last no more than ten minutes at regular speed. In Padukah, the walk to school was about 15-20 minutes and walking to any store was right around the corner which made my rare trips outside extremely easy. As I trailed slowly up the block, I could hear the rumble of a car in the distance and it wasn't long before it past me. Their music pierced the sidewalk and the outline of their figure was thrashing wildly to the music as they drove recklessly down the street and turned the corner. I had about 40 minutes until school started so I thought it was okay to stroll and observe my surroundings. 

The heat in Kentucky was unbearable, but the weather in Seattle was a little different, almost stuffy and humid, but still more clear than Paducah. The stuffiness and humidity could be due to the rain from last night, but then again I had no idea. As I got closer I noticed the vacant parking lot, but the few cars there were parked, were beyond expensive. There Audi, to nearly new looking Mercedes, and random sports. I stopped walking for a second to observe a struggling, lone figure getting out of their parked car. I could see them tugging on something in the passenger seat of their car.

I could barely make out their shoulder length hair and the oversize jacket they wore. The gender of the person was still very unknown to me. Even as I moved closer I still had no idea. Their hair was short enough to be a boy, but then again slightly longer than what a boy would rock. Maybe it was a guy in need of a bad hair cut.  

"s**t!" They swore loudly as things fell from their opened door. They seemed oblivious of the random items rolling away. I rushed to them and picked up a basketball that managed to roll away.