Wendy

Lily and I have been best friends since second grade when this over sized buffoon, Jodie Perkins, pushed her off the monkey bars.

That ape girl Jodie and I had a nice long talk and she apologized to Lily and never, ever bothered us again.

Especially Lily. Nobody ever picked on Lily after that.

Excluding me, that is. She's my best friend and I'll pick on her if I damn well please.

"Wendy." I could hear my mothers first groan of spring break. "Weeeeeeendyyyyyyyyyy."

"Yes Mother, dear?" I tried to drape my sarcasm in something more comforting. I know she's sick, she's always sick on Thursday.

Its the end of her weekend. You'd think as an experienced drug addict she would have learned to ration her drugs through out the week, or find a way to get more.

I guess she already works two jobs and does her best to get to her college classes on the real weekends.

Not that those two jobs have done much to save us, but to be fair we are still recovering from when she went all loony, moved us to Alabama for a summer and sold all our shit for- You guessed it!

More Drugs.

"Can you bring me some wine? Please."

I bet my teachers wonder why I always miss school on Thursdays. Lily obviously knows, but Lily knows everything.

Well. Almost everything.

I'm really just content to be off for the week, I need the time off. I almost forgot to ask if I could go to Lily's for the weekend. I got Danny to run Shelly to my aunt's house, so I can probably rock that until at least Saturday night.

I barely noticed myself zombie walking into the kitchen to feed my mother's demons, I opened the fridge and held a filmy glass up to the box of cheap wine my mother probably got from a sleezy gas station in crack town. Crack Town? Really? Come on Wendy. That's all you've got?

She barely noticed me as I walked through her bed room door. She was sleeping on her side like I'd asked her too, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

At least she isn't going to choke when she throws up all over the new floor.

These new wood floors have been really dirty lately... My brain flashed back to the bleeding sunset on my own floor.

"Here." I gave her my arm and did my best to pull her into a sitting position as she moaned, her back pressed up against the head board and her hair curled with day old styling mousse.

"My whole body hurts." She said as she took the glass from my hand.

"You know," I started bitterly "It probably wouldn't hurt so bad if-"

"Wendy. That is quite enough." She interrupted her gulp. "Thank you."

I sat next to her, mostly to keep her from spilling that rotten grape shit all over her bed. Again.

I can still see all the faded purple and red stains littering the bed from times when shes spilled. Little drops that almost look like delicate little splatter flowers from when she was trying to adjust her blankets or fix her hair. Big splotches from when she's gotten too high and passed out. Oddly huge, almost antiqued yellow stains with a strange translucent brown linings in the middle of the mattress from what I can only assume is from one of her white wine nights. Maybe some kind of extra large beer.

I just don't understand how it could be so big. Was this a sudden realization of her alcoholism and bad parenting skills? Did this come after almost drowning my baby sister in the bath tub or smacking me in the face? After she kicked Peter out the night he became my Shadow Boy, instead of just the kid who grew up next door? Did she dump the whole bottle as some kind of motivational tick? Or was this from one of her benders when she and her sister had some kind of weird six person party in here? Did they all spill wine in the same spot? I bet they were playing some kind of weird game and that's where they put the cards or whatever. Like kings cup. Maybe the big cup spilled. I don't freaking kn-

Pee. I'm sitting in pee. I'm sitting in my mothers. Fucking. Pee.

I'm putting a sheet on this bed. That is completely ridiculous. She is 32 years old, for Christ sake. What the hell does this look like? This is a bed. Not a fucking toilet.

I try to put my mind as far away from it as much I can as I watch my mother's head bob into her cup.

"Can I go to Lily's? Her parents are having a cook out and her mom is making me fruit salad and grilled zucchini and corn and stuff." I tried to talk quickly before I had to wake her. Its always no if I have to wake her.

"Does your sister have clean clothes for school tomorrow?" She grunted

"Its spring break. There is no school tomorrow." I steadied her glass before she made another rose colored stain on her bed.

"Then where is she?"

Are you kidding? You don't care where she is when you're gone for six days straight. Just when I want to go somewhere. I could feel my thoughts slipping into that monster they become when I've been alone too long.

When the monster grows hungry. When I have nothing left to give this woman when I've given her more than I had to live on. More than I need to breath.

"Danny and I took her to Aunt Tris's yesterday." I breathed

"You took her to Beatrice's yesterday. Say her name correctly."

The woman is so anal. Of course with a name like Jane you'd never understand why someone would shorten their name.

"Danny and I took her to Aunt Beatrice's yesterday afternoon. She and Desiree wanted to go camping for spring break and I need Lily to help me study-"

"Why can't Lily come here?"

Oh. My. God. Mother. Nobody wants to come here. Nobody wants to watch you get drunk, shoot up and then pass out on the floor if I'm damn lucky.

I paused before my thoughts came out and I had to sit with her again. Sobbing about how she's a terrible mother while she promises to do better, between sips of wine, but never does.

"...Lily's parents are having a cook out." I repeated "Her family is all going to be there, I can't ask her to bail. Her mom made all this special stuff for me-"

"For what?" She said as she rubbed her eyes.

"To eat?" My voice wavered. I'm used to repeating myself over and over for her and I'm used to her stupid questions. But I doubt I'll ever have the patience for them.

"Why do you need special stuff? Are you like on a diet? I need to go on a diet." She rambled as she grabbed the stretched mark scarred skin at her stomach. Her ribs poked from either side of her t-shirt and I couldn't help but notice her cheeks were looking abnormally thin. I wonder if she switched back to speed. That's when she stops eating, I mean she's always on some weird diet, but she only gets this skinny when she's on speed. I glanced at my mother's face to try to diagnose her current disease. There aren't many scabs, so I guess if she switched she hasn't been on it long. Of course our family is prone to two or three large zits rather than clusters of small ones, so its hard to tell if she's picking her face or popping her zits. Which she also has a weird affinity for.

"I don't eat meat anymore mom. Factory farming is a demented practice."

I don't like the texture of carcass in between my teeth, Mother. You supposedly raised me. This is not a new development. I've disliked meat since I can remember, distinctly since you encouraged me to go to my sperm donors house every weekend and that useless excuse for a house wife of his felt the need to serve hockey puck steak every Sunday because its "Daddy's favorite" and he felt like I needed to eat everything on my plate because steak is expensive, not that you can tell after she let her hell spawn take it to the underworld to make us all leather to eat for dinner. Fucking delicious.

God, I'm angsty today. I hope Lily is ready for this, I kind of already feel sorry for her. Maybe I'll just stay home. No need to bring Lily down, her whole family is over and I would hate to make her put up with my bullshit and still try to be happy little Lily.

"Are the dishes done?" Mom prodded.

"We ran out of propane yesterday, if I would have known we weren't going to have hot water I would have taken all the laundry to Lily's and done it over the weekend and done the dishes first, but I didn't realize we were on a limit. I thought you were picking some up on Tuesday, since we got Dad's check."

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" She snapped "Wendy! That is the only thing I asked you to do!"

"Yeah, but I did the ones that-"

"No buts young lady! Do the dishes and then I'll take you to Lily's." She slumped back into her bed, setting her empty glass on the floor.

"I'll walk." I sulked as I exited her room and walked down the hall zombie-fied into the kitchen.

I sighed as I turned on the faucet, taking a sponge and dabbing it with the watered down remains of dish soap left in the virtually empty bottle, I plunged my hands into the icy water.

I stood rocking back and forth trying to scrub the day old spaghetti-o's from a bowl Shelly had left sit in her room and apparently, just thought to bring out before she was about to leave for break. Shelly's dishes we always the worst, at least Mom had the decency to eat out or not at all. Sometimes she'd eat this awful bagged frozen chicken that was mostly gristle with the frozen vegetable that was on sale that week. But those were always easy to wash, no grease. Grease is fattening. Nothing was bad unless she fell asleep and burnt it.

I held my breath as I approached Mom's protein shaker. That Thing... That thing was always terrible. I don't care if she just dropped it on the floor, the inside always smelled like something died in there. Unfortunately for me, it was half full of curdled since Tuesday chocolate protein mix. I dumped the green speckled chunks into the sink and rinsed it as thoroughly as I could before I stuck the sponge in. I learned rather quickly that if I do the top first I'll have to rewash it at the end but my arm won't smell like rotten power mix all day. So that's what I did, I started at the top and got all the lid ridges and worked my way down to the gross layer of mucus at the bottom. Rinse. Breath.

I breathed too soon. I could feel my cereal making a celebrity appearance in the back of my throat. All I smell is protein shake and my mouth is full of chewed cereal and warm acidy milk. I couldn't help myself, grateful that Danny had taken the trash out when we took Shelly to Tris's, I emptied myself into the clean trash bag. My hair fell forward, threatening to smell like vomit until I made the trek to Lily's, but in some kind of luck I managed to keep my mane out of my squalor. I heaved, nothing was coming up. What I can only describe as a stomach acid flavored foam started slowly trailing up my throat and into the trash can. After a few minutes of dry heaving, I was able to stand.

I was almost disappointed in myself, any other day I'd have forced myself to swallow it. I knew very well that there is nothing left in the house to eat, seeing as we'd been off school for three days now. And had I not been going to Lily's I'd be starving all night until I could try to coax my mother into ordering some food or driving me to the grocery store.

Okay. Only the breakfast dishes and you can leave for Lily's. I thought to myself as I wiped mine and Shelly's pre-rinsed dishes. I mean, two bowls, two spoons. Not so bad.

No big deal.

I wiped the remaining spittle from my lips with my frigid fingers and filled a cup with water before I turned off the faucet. I walked into my mom's bed room to find her laying on her back snoring and fidgeting with the blankets. I turned her on her side before covering her up with her comforter. She was freezing, and sweating like a pig.

"I'm going to Lily's now Mama, I left you the last piece of pizza in the fridge and there's a glass of water on the floor next to your bed. I love you."

I swept the hair from her face and she shuttered at my touch. It must have slipped my mind how cold my hands must be.

Feelings aren't really my strong suit anymore, I guess.

Okay, well I know it's bee a year and I'm very sorry.

I also know this was just some rambling.

But! I will try to do better next time.

Next chapter I feel like experimenting with Lily, so bear with me. Okay?

Thank you all so much for your awesome-ness!

Also, still no editor. My bad for all my spelling and grammar transgressions.

I love you!

MXM