Đọc truyện We Went Broke at Midnight | ✔ - 1

1 | money changes everything

Trước Sau

Màu nền

Font chữ

Font size

Chiều cao dòng

❝While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.❞
― Groucho Marx

1 || money changes everything

time || morning

Money changes everything, I tell you. It changes every damn thing and there's nothing either me or you can do about it. Why did Dad have to lose his job? Why did Mom leave? Why did things turn out the way they are now?

It sucks. I'm walking around downtown Havendust trying to grasp the fact that I'm broke, and that the friends I once had are not standing beside me and helping me get through this horrible time in my life.

My dad owns a small chain of companies, and because of some bad investments that had been made, the companies are now being put in major jeopardy.

I say we're broke, but Dad says he'll have to see by midnight—that's when he'll receive a phone call from his agent and tax lawyer, giving him the details on wether or not the deal had come through. Which confirms wether or not Dad is actually broke.

I can't even begin to tell you how nerve wracking it is to know you could be left homeless, in such short time. Dad hasn't told me this yet, but I just have this strange notion that if this deal doesn't come through, we could be left homeless and broke. It's not just me jumping to conclusions.

And what about some close-kin that could take us in? you ask. Heh, I'd be lying to you if I told you that my dad had any contact with his family, much less from any kin in my mom's side. My dad had left his troubled home life at age 18 after winning a full scholarship to study overseas at a college in some foreign land, he'd managed to graduate and to come back to America to put his degree into full effect.

Which worked.

His family just couldn't get over the fact that their middle child, Iain Collin Rice was a successful company owner living in Havendust, Iowa with his wife Pat and daughter Karen. They just couldn't grasp my dad's success and have hated and resented him ever since. I can't even tell you a time when I've been to a family reunion, because well, I haven't. I can't tell you I've experienced anything with my cousins, aunts, uncles, or grandparents, because well, I haven't. I can't even tell you that I've spent a night with all my cousins at my grandparent's house, because well, I haven't.

I'm pitiful, aren't I?

Dad doesn't know I'm out. Part if it has to do with my frustration and anger towards him. I blame him for everything; mom leaving, my loneliness, and the reason why we could be homeless in a couple hours. I love my dad, I really do, but it's times like this where he really frustrates me, and makes me wanna hitchhike to the moon so I can be far away from him.

I feel defeated and lost; hence the slump of my shoulders and the two heels I'm holding in my hands (my feet were getting tired from all this walking). What can I do right now to make it all better? I could call my friend Justice and ask her if she knows anyone who sells any sort of drug that can make the pain go away. I know she sometimes does drugs, but not for that particular reason. She thinks she's fat—when she isn't. Not at all. I can be nice enough to say, she's skinnier than me. She takes these pills that she thinks helps her lose weight, I've only seen her do it a few times. But lately, I haven't. So maybe me calling her right now about drugs, is me enabling her.

See I'm being a good friend.

It's not as if she'd answer, anyway. Besides Justice likes hanging out with Gwen. Warner High's biggest slut, no doubt.

As I'm nearing Laney's, a known cafe around Havendust, I observe a couple arguing in front of the cafe. I stand there and watch. A couple arguing in public interests me. It's not that I love conflict, but I have this unanswered question that's been eating me ever since Mom left. What makes people argue?

There used to be two questions, but I know the answer to the other one: why do people leave? I figure people leave because they feel as if they're in control, but at the same time they're hurting people in the process, and they know it.

Do you know I haven't seen my mom in five years? In the beginning, I tried finding her through the web, but it just looks to me that Mom's intentionally avoiding me and Dad. I tried calling her, she never picked up. The last time I had heard from her was two years ago, when I'd woken up one night to hear Dad shouting. I went to his bedroom to find him on the phone, and for some strange reason I knew it was Mom he was talking to. He told me to go back to my room but I told him I wanted to speak to Mom. Reluctantly, he handed me the phone, but when I pressed the phone close up to my ear. I heard Mom whisper something before the line went dead.

I cried all night, after that. And Dad... he just delved into his liquor cabinet.

"You're a loser, Brolin!" I hear the woman shout to the guy, Brolin. There's a yellow stain on his white dress shirt, and the woman looks angry; her eyebrows furrowed together, and her red lips pursed in disapproval. I can't exactly tell you what they're arguing about. It could be anything from infidelity to money.

Brolin isn't saying anything. He's giving the woman a look of tiredness. He looks done, knowing that whatever he says or do isn't gonna convince this woman who's yelling at him. Even though it's none of my business, I have a feeling that he's dealing with an issue that the woman isn't understanding.

"What do you mean your broke!" she says, putting her hands on her hips, and stomping her feet, reminding me of a little kid throwing a tantrum. "What do you mean you have to spend the last of your money to see your grandfather in the hospital? You're really pathetic, you know that, Brolin?

Again Brolin isn't saying anything. He's whooped; his hair is disheveled as if he's been running his fingers through it countless times, trying to take ahold of something to pull himself together. How I know? Dad does the same thing when he's stressed. And yes, before I'd left the house he was doing it, and I was going to lose my marbles if he wasn't going to stop.

"Forget it, we're done," the woman says. He doesn't say anything and watches her walk away.

:: :: ::