It's been a while, hasn't it?

I am not a reliable person

I am not a reliable person.

You give me any sort of responsibility; I swear to God, I will fuck it up. I just wanted to make this clear because right now I'm standing in front of a class of bored teens trying to give a speech about anti-vaccination. Leon and I were partners for this. We were supposed to write a research paper (which I did) and then present the information to the class in a "funny, creative" way. Like everyone else, we just made a power point. How the hell am I supposed to make anti-vaccination funny? It's not. Children die over it. Hell, certain diseases have even came ba- Oh. Look at myself rambling.

As I was saying, we made a powerpoint. You can use the powerpoint to present but you just can't look at it to make your speech. You have to do this shit acapella and I am stumbling over my words.

"The myth that autism is contracted by vaccines was actually started by…" Come on, brain. You're good at one thing: storing useless information. I pretty sure you can remember this.

I look at Leon. He has his head down with his bangs covering up ¾ of his face. Everyone else had a sympathetic look on their face. The kids in the front row were avoiding eye contact with me. I get it. You want me to stop. I do too.

I shift my weight between my feet. "Uh…it was started by…"

"Matthew, why don't you try learning a little about your topic before you try to present it?" My teacher said, without looking up from his papers. I nodded and Leon and I took our seats. "You can present again next week, just know I'm taking 50 points off." Oh God. I can feel Leon staring daggers into me. I feel really bad about this. He's a straight A student. He doesn't need me bombing his Health grade like that. I lie my head down on my desk. My thoughts drain out the next presentation.

-/-

"Wow, that was bad." Julchen as she slipped her hand into mine. "Seeing you up there, struggling, it was cringeworthy."

"Like yours was any better. You kept throwing in lame anime references. No one gets those."

"I'm sure someone did." She says under her breath. Julchen, as have guessed, is my girlfriend. She is like a mutated scene kid pixie whose blood is actually Red Bull. She's sort of conceded, loud, and extremely obnoxious. But she's cute and I've known her since the 5th grade so that makes up for everything else.

Every day after school, we go to the Barnes & Noble up the street. We don't do anything in there but it's that one place I'd rather be than home.

I was reading a rock magazine when Julchen interrupts me. "Prom."

"What?"

"Prom's coming up. You should take me." She flips her hair over her shoulder. "We could show all those posers up."

"Posers? I haven't heard that word since 2008. And why do you wanna go so badly?"

"Because." She stretches out the word. "Prom is supposed to be your final mark on high school. That's why people ask celebrates to prom. You're supposed to do dumb shit to make everyone remember you."

"I don't want to be remembered. I want people to forget me. If I could, I'd rip out my picture from everyone's yearbooks."

"God, you're so emo." She laughs. "You should go anyway. Free food, good music. You like those things don't you?"

"I buy a bag of chips at the corner store and list to music with my headphones." I hear her sigh sharply. She gets up and walks right in front of me. Her hands then tightly grip my shoulders. They're freezing. She looks me dead in the eye. "You're going, okay?" I nod slowly, trying push her hands off of me. That's the thing about Julchen. She knows how to shake people to their cores.

-/-

Dad's weekend. Since I'm eighteen, I'm not legally obligated to go over his house anymore, but I do anyway. He's so much more caring than Mom. He asks if I'm okay, if I need anything, when the last time I've eaten was.

His house is huge and it's not like he needs the room. Half of the rooms in his house are dedicated to his hobbies, such as the wine cellar and the 'big TV with only one recliner' room.

I stay in the basement, which is probably the best room in the whole house. It used to be Al's old room and I can see why he liked it it so much. This was supposed to be a panic room, so there's this huge metal door with a bunch a complicated locks on it. Next you got your concrete, soundproof walls which makes it makes it cold as fuck in the winter but great for when you wanna blast your skate punk albums without anyone telling you shit.

And the last thing that makes this place so awesome? An exit leading up into the backyard. You know how many times I've snuck in and out of here?

knockknockknock. "Mattie, you should come upstairs for dinner?" I hear a female voice struggle call out. That's probably the one thing I can do without.

So, like my mom, my dad remarried. His marriage is arguably better than what Mom and Lars could ever create but get this: the girl is 25 and hasn't worked a day in her life. 25, just a couple years older than Al.

Her name's Andrea and she's Spanish. Dad met her a year after he and Mom got divorced on a cruise ship. He says he met her after nearly knocking each other over on the beach. After a couple of sorry about that's and isn't it nice out here's, they got acquainted. And now she's here as Dad's new wife. Not my stepmom, but Dad's new wife.

I even remember the first time I met her too. It wasn't as awkward as Lars' but goddamnit, she sent off some really bad vibes. Like for one, she only focused on Mickey. She constantly conversed with her about the season's latest boy band or if cancelling Hannah Montana did Disney any justice and I guess that's one thing I gotta hand to her. She's great with little kids. As for Al and I, she asked us if we listened to Nickleplay which prompted Al to spit his drink all over the dinner table. Dad took him outside to have a lengthy talk about manners and respect and please please don't mess this up for me.

I honestly can't give you a good opinion on her. All I know is that every time I see her with a new expensive thing, a mental video starts playing in my head. Dad's laying half dead on his hospital bed and she's waving his will in my face stating that he's giving 95% of everything he owns to her.

But enough about her. "I'll be up in a minute." I yell up. I turn the volume on my iPod speaker up louder. It's Hellspawn #2 I'm worried about.