Found this in my Documents. Figured I'd post it.
She's the responsible one. She's got everything together…right?
When she gets home, she cleans and does homework and the laundry because, if she doesn't, no one else will.
Trina's who knows where, she thinks, smiling bitterly. Probably getting drunk, AGAIN, and, if she's lucky, this time she won't get a DUI driving back home in the early hours of the morning.
Maybe this time her parents will actually do something about it, instead of sending her to her room tiredly and saying they'll talk about it later. (They never do, and she can't decide if she's relieved or mad.)
But she keeps on working, silently separating the whites and cleaning out the bathroom. Looking in the kitchen for a brief minute, she almost wants to make something, before she shrugs and pulls a Pop Tart from the cabinet. Maybe tomorrow. (She's been telling herself that for weeks.)
Late at night, she works. She didn't think high school would have so much homework, but it does, and she keeps her grades up. She'd never brag, but her grades are almost all A's, and to her, that's good, especially with her taking every opportunity she can to make a name for herself, get ahead somehow.
She gets lots chances but they never seem to amount to much.
So she works some more.
She doesn't want a driver's license because she'd be relegated to all of the other tasks, the only ones she doesn't have to do. Buying food, toiletries, medicine. The fridge's almost empty but she doesn't care, not if she isn't the one responsible for filling it.
Trina's back again, and watching TV. She wants to tell her to tone the blaring sound down and ask if she's done with her homework, but she knows the answer to both of her questions. So she keeps her throbbing head down and reminds herself that people actually like her.
(Not that she has much of a life anymore.)
She can't tell you when it starts. Ever since she'd started growing older, chores seemed to be handed to her like candy. Once, she asked why Trina never had to do her chores.
Her mother's voice rang in her ears for days.
She doesn't even know where her mother goes. (Or why she can't take care of her family.) Holly talks about a nice man named Jerry and how they go out for coffee sometimes, though, and Tori has that dreading feeling in her stomach again because she thinks she kind of knows. It gets confirmed when she asks her dad what going for coffee means and he tells her it can be used as a metaphor for smoking pot.
Eventually, she grows to recognize the smell of pot on her mother, in the clothes and the glassy eyes, and knows when to leave her alone. The Tuesdays and Thursdays are the worst, though, and she spends those days avoiding her mother.
Sometimes she wonders why they don't hire a housekeeper, but remembers. Why pay the money when they have one built in?
She tells herself she's not bitter, that this is practice for the real world. But those words don't convince her when she's cleaning the toilet and trying to get Trina through her hangovers without vomit spewing everywhere.
After two years, she gives up on trying to wake Trina up for school and finds the bus route. But the seats are sticky and the people are loud, and she avoids it like the plague after one particularly raucous boy catcalls her when she's getting on the bus.
And for the next two weeks, she wears big sweaters and hides her face. She's questioned everywhere she goes, and she's tired of them, because yes, she knows it's 75 degrees outside and yes, she's fine. She's said that so many times she's not even sure what it's supposed to mean anymore, to her or to the person she's telling it to.
She hates that one whistle can make her feel so objectified, and knows she'll never be able to look at the man or his 'gang' without remembering.
Supposedly, her father works a 9 to 5 job, occasionally covering other shifts or working overtime, so Tori doesn't know why he comes home so late. Once, thinking he was working late, she called the police station, but they said he'd already left with his girlfriend. She doesn't know what to think after that, her dad being the most religious and moral in the family, but finds she doesn't care much. What he does is his business. He's the only one who ever takes Trina's credit card away so that they don't go bankrupt as soon as they would've.
And so Tori spends her days wasting away, wishing hoping dreaming for a way out.
She doesn't find one.
Short and bitter. I got the idea from this book, The Key to the Golden Firebird.
