BELOVED
Giving Up
Jayce was sitting on the ledge outside of his window, which served as the roof to the porch. His mother
cared about him too much, but too little. When she was around people, like the people from the orphanage,
she cared too much, but at home, she was never there… He'd been born when his mother was fifteen. He'd
been given to an orphanage and about five years later, his mother had returned for him, claiming that she
was capable of caring for him.
She did take pretty good care of him, when his was younger, but as he got
older, that diminished to almost nothing…his mother caring for him. She was rarely home anymore, and
when she stumbled through the door at an early hour, she was always drunk or high. Mostly drunk. She
didn't care about his schooling, sometimes it was like he was living alone. There was rarely food in the
house, so Jayce was underweight.
He wasn't malnourished, but he couldn't remember the last time he had eaten a meal. He usually just stole
a snack from a convenience store, eating it on the way home. His
stomach had shrunken so much, that he wouldn't hear his stomach growl for about three days. But he
fainted often, without realizing it.
Every time his mom came home drunk or high, he'd wonder how she managed to keep the house. He
didn't think she had a job. Did her parents send her money? Why didn't they care about her? His own
mother was more like an acquaintance than a mother. She always ignored him when she was sober. And
when she talked to him (while sober) she only asked him about random crap he didn't want to talk about like:
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
"What did you do today?" He'd always answer 'no' or 'nothing'. She didn't really care, so why the hell
should he even bother?
On days that he actually went to school, everyone stared at him as he walked down the halls, head down,
books clutched to his chest. He felt them staring at him as he quietly doodled during class. Then slowly, one
by one, the other students ignored him. The teachers, the principal had all given up on him. He had given up
on all of them, all of his teachers, his principal, his mother, even himself, on certain days, everyone. On
those days, he'd stay in bed, depressed and never shed a single tear, because what good would that do? It
would only hurt.