The note on the 'fridge didn't really tell Dex much.
"Joined circus. Back asap. Food in fridge. Look after Kai."
He opened the door of the 'fridge, and rolled his eyes. "Yeah Mom, great. We've got cheese and olives. What the fuck?" He slammed the door and went into the living room, pushing ornaments aside on the mantlepiece until he came to the one he was looking for; a truly ugly pink vase decorated with lurid green stars. He'd made it in kindergarten. Tipping it upside-down the teenager counted out how much money he'd managed to save from the odd jobs he'd been doing around the apartment complex.
"Twenty-five dollars and ten cents. Great." He heaved a sigh and threw himself onto the couch. "Look after Kai, right…" He muttered to himself. "As if I could do anything else." He glared at the ceiling, as though the yellowing paintwork was somehow to blame for his mother's flightiness. It wasn't, of course, and Dex knew that.
Since he was old enough to understand emotional nuances he'd known that his mother hated to stay put. Some of his first memories were of them moving; first around Hawaii, then into various other US states. She never talked about their father, and Dex had been smart enough to know even at a young age that it was a subject he didn't want to bring up.
He'd always had a sneaking suspicion that he and Kai were getting in the way of his mother's "freedom", and he'd pretty much been waiting for something like this to happen. He was just relieved that he was old enough to actually be able to look after Kai, that he would be able to find a job of some shape.
"I'm back!" The door slammed so loudly that Dex instinctively checked the picture on the wall; Kai had knocked it off before. "Mom?"
"She's out, Kai." He got up quickly, tripped over the rug and fell face-first onto the floor. "Ow fuck…" He muttered, and hoped his sister hadn't heard. She had enough bad habits as it was.
"Where'd she go?" Kai dropped her schoolbag on the floor with a resounding 'thud'. "She gonna be late?"
"Uh, probably. You got homework?" Dex untangled himself from the combination of rug and couch, and watched as Kai pouted and crossed her arms.
"Yeah…" She grumbled after a long period of silence in which Dex just stared at her. "Got math."
"Right, well do that and I'll get dinner."
"Ugh, you're not cooking?" Kai's look of combined horror and disgust both amused and annoyed her brother.
"No." He said shortly. "I'm getting take-out."
"Whoo!" Kai punched the air and grinned, then grabbed her bag and danced into her bedroom, singing some pop song. Dex shook his head, managing a small smile; she was so full of energy. He sometimes envied that about Kai, how she was always so bright and bouncy. She only really cried when she was trying to get her own way, or if she'd really hurt herself – and even then she'd try and joke about it.
He listened to her singing (badly, and rather out-of-tunely) for a minute more, then headed into the kitchen and regarded the note their mother had left. Dex had no idea how long she was going to be gone for, but he figured it was going to be quite some time.
I knew this was coming. He told himself. Just have to do something about it.
Whilst trying to work out what, exactly, he could do, Dex called for pizza. He figured he could afford that, at least for tonight. Tomorrow… He sighed. Tomorrow he would have to begin job-hunting.