1 Brandon.Yesterday's Feelings.Novak=the beginning
"And I've become content with this life that I lead, where I drink too much and don't believe much in anything"

"Okay now let's get started," Dr. Monroe said.
"Ok."
"Where should we start?" she questioned.
"I don't know, where do you wanna start?"
"How about from the beginning?"
"Well, when I was little my mom died from breast cancer and..."
"How old were you?"
"Like six I think, maybe eight or seven."
"Mhm, go on."
"And after she died my dad started drinking, like a lot-"
"How much?"
"I don't know, I didn't count his every sip. And then-Oh God," I thought back to not that long ago, "then he lost his job; he lost our house." I paused. "We had to go on welfare and apply for food stamps and move into government housing. It sucked."
"Sounds like you had it pretty rough." I continued staring at the ceiling. "Did he ever hit you?"
"No, once or twice maybe." She looked up from her notepad and gave me a questioning look. "Only when I made him mad."
"How often was he mad?"
"Rarely, he was more of a lazy drunk than a mean one."
"How regularly was he drunk then?"
"I can't remember a time when he wasn't."
"Since you were six, correct?"
"I guess."
"And CPS never took you away?"
"Well, no."
"How did this make you feel?"
"How did what make me feel?"
"Your situation."
"I-I don't know, I was happy." I guessed at the answer.
"Happy?"
"Yeah, like I didn't know what I was missing out on: a loving dad, clean clothes, happy family. I was happy with not getting hit, I mean sure the alcohol smelled bad, but other than that I was happy."
"I see I see," she repeated to herself, "so let's move on to when your father passed away."
"Well, I was about 17 when I was over at my neighbor's house getting high and-"
"Was it a guy or a girl?"
"Who?"
"Your neighbor, was it a guy or a girl?"

"A guy, he was on the football team or baseball something like that. He had these really big muscles –uh- he was so hot." I relished in the memory.
"How well did you know this guy?"
"We had had relations but other than that I knew his name."
"Let me get this straight you had slept with this man and you didn't even know him?"
"It wasn't that rare of a thing."
"But you were only 17, a child."
"Okay."
"How many times had that happened?"
"I'm not sure, too many to count." I didn't have to think about it, I already knew I couldn't remember how many times I walked next door and hooked up with my sexy neighbor.
"If you don't mind me asking; how old you were when you lost your virginity?"
"Seven or eight."
"But you were so young," she stated as if I had no idea.
"When my dad got drunk there was nothing I could do."
"To your father?"
"Yeah, but it's no big deal."
"Sweetheart, it is."
"No. It's not."
"Do you want to continue?"
"Yeah okay, so I guess it technically started just a couple weeks after school began in early September...
"That's some good shit," I giggled finishing off the second joint of the morning.
"It's imported from Mexico," he leaned closer to me. "So I held up my end of the deal, now it's your turn," he said in a more serious tone.

Our little system was pretty simple, we would both skip school on Friday and I'd go over to his place to get high then we would fuck."

"That's a lot of school to miss. You must've had a hard time keeping your grades up?" Dr. Monroe asked.
"I-I slept with my teachers, and if the teacher was a woman or gay or whatever, I'd just come up with some crackpot story about my dad being sick or something stupid like that. It was a small town, everyone knew my dad was a wino."
The look of terror on her face told me how she felt about my past.
"I'm not proud of what I did, but it's too late to change it now."
"Please proceed with your story," she said shaking her head in shame.

"Well that day it was different than the others, usually I would just go over in the morning, but Thursday me and my dad got into a big fight over something stupid, so I went over to his house to blow off some steam. We fucked a few times before he passed out, but thankfully his brother was visiting from college that weekend, and me and him did it till I wore him out too.
The next morning I was woken up by the sound sirens down the road. Once I realized they were coming from my house I ran a few doors down to my house only to be pushed away by the cops.
"I'm sorry this is a crime scene ma'am, authorized personnel only," the young cop said.
"This is my house!" I pleaded.
"I'm sorry but you have to stay behind the yellow tape."
"Can you tell me what happened?" I asked frantically as I saw a body bag being wheeled out of the house. I knew it had to be my dad, who else could it have been, honestly? But I still couldn't believe it.
"The man who lived here couldn't take it anymore."
"What does that mean?" I ran under the tape up to the stretcher and pulled the top off slowly to see my father's face cover in dried blood. I froze looking into my father's cold empty face.

People started pulling me away and I tried not to budge, but in the end I failed.
They took me to the station and told me to wait there. So I waited there, and I waited there, then I waited some more.
"Angel?" I heard a loving voice say.
"Uncle Knox?" I was surprised. I loved my uncle more than my dad, but he lived all the way in California and didn't visit, ever.
"Oh sweetheart, I'm so sorry the cop he called and I heard what happened, you must be so sad," he pulled me into a tight embrace.
"What did happen?"
"You don't know?"

"I just know he killed himself."

"Well they say that your dad- Well your dad, he was really drunk and he-he shot himself."
For the first time in a long time I burst into tears, how could he have done that?
"What am I supposed to do now? I don't have a job, I'm still in school, I can't afford rent-"
"Shh, I've got it all planned out already."
"No I can't."
"It's alright don't worry."
"So I'm gonna live with you?" I loved my uncle to death, but I couldn't spend that long in a house with both him and my Aunt Melanie, they fought all the fucking time. The streets
"Not me pursue," he sounded kinda awkward.
"What?"
"Well me and Melanie are kind of going through a divorce so I planned on you staying with some friends of mine-If that's okay with you?"
"Oh God now I'm scared," I said sarcastically.
"I would be too," Uncle Knoxville just laughed it off."