Hey everyone, I'm back! I promised a new story while my exams were on so here it is! I'm afraid it's not a cheerful one (yeah, I know it should be). Where do I get my ideas from I wonder...? Ah well, I've been told if I fail my exams I have to join the army so if I'm not posting regularly you can guess why! Never mind, enough of my rambling! On with the opening chapter...
(I've rated it PG13 for swearing in later chapters.)
A Bad Day
"How dare you say that? You're the one that's never at home. I give up, honestly."
"You give up? You did that years ago. You might as well go fu…"
A door slammed. Conner sat up in his room, trying to block out the sounds of his parents arguing. They'd been at it since Eric left, but during the past few weeks it had got steadily worse. Now all they did was argue. It was unbearable – almost. Conner took a swig from the bottle of vodka he'd taken from the kitchen. They wouldn't notice; his mum assumed it was his father that was drinking all the alcohol. Showed how much his parents cared. It was his only escape from the rows.
His parents both worked from nine in the morning 'til quite late in the afternoon, sometimes not getting in until eight pm, and when they did see each other all they did was argue. Conner was forgotten – the only time they had talked to him this week was to tell him off for leaving his muddy soccer boots lying in the hall. His friends hadn't noticed anything different – despite appearances Conner was a good actor. He sighed, turned his tv up and lost himself to an alcoholic haze.
The next morning Conner had a hangover, but he was used to waking up feeling sick and with a huge headache so he just got on with his life – or tried to. It seemed he couldn't do some of the simplest things now with out having to have a drink of some form of alcohol. It was taking over his life. He knew he had a problem, but who was there for him to talk to? His parents were too busy arguing with each other, his normal friends wouldn't understand and Ethan, Kira and Dr. O… well they had bigger things to think about.
School wasn't going well either. Because of his ranger duties, soccer practice and unhappy home life he had got behind on his work. He hadn't done any homework for at least two weeks, and while Dr. O showed some sympathy, the other teachers were not quite so understanding. After a day of getting yelled at by various teachers and his soccer coach, Conner was ready to go home and get completely slaughtered. Then the day managed to get even worse. He arrived home to find both his parents in, something that rarely happened. He went inside to hear them arguing again. Shaking his head, he went to the cupboard and grabbed a full bottle of vodka. He was heading to his room when he heard something that made him stop.
"Fine," his father, David, yelled, "I'll speak to my lawyers in the morning then."
"And I'll speak to mine!" Lisa yelled back, "With any luck we can be divorced in time for Christmas, just what the boys' need."
"Conner…" his dad caught sight of him at the door with the look of horror on his face, but Conner didn't wait for them say anymore. He'd heard all he needed to.
"Conner," his mum banged on his locked bedroom door, "Conner honey, we didn't mean for you to hear that. Why don't you open the door and we can talk about it."
"No way," Conner yelled back, "I don't want to hear anything either of you has to say. You can both go to hell for all I care. Leave me alone."
"Now look what you've done," Lisa turned on David.
"Me? Oh, so now it's all my fault…"
Conner sat on the floor in his room with his back to the door and turned his stereo up loud to block out the raging argument. He unscrewed the top of the bottle and took a gulp. He'd downed most of the bottle and was sitting in a warm alcoholic glow when his morpher beeped. One of Mezagog's monsters had appeared to terrorise Earth once again.
Conner groaned – this day just kept on getting better…
