Less than a half. Denominator times twelve divided by four. Numbers, numbers, fractions equals more than half of my mind filled with sums that could not possibly be ever solved. I sat quietly, twirling my pen between my thumb and index finger, trying my best to look deeply engrossed with my work. My ears were filled with the buzzing excitement of the class. As I scanned my eyes across the room, I saw my classmates frantically speaking over each other and intently solving problems. Heaving a sigh, I dropped my gaze back to my empty worksheet just as the bell rang. 

Just like another day, I trudged by the sidewalk, kicking the dirt, dragging the time as much as I could. With a mountain of unfinished homework and a mess waiting to be cleaned up when I get back, the last thing I wanted to do was go home. Well I could just sneak out in the middle of the night with all my belongings and leave that house for the rest of my life. But what happens to Brandon? Who is going to be there to protect him when Dad is drunk after drinking a ton of liquor? Nobody. Thanks to mom leaving us in this hell when I was nine. I still could faintly remember her singing us to sleep, tugging Brandon beside her, wrapping her arm around my shoulders to keep me warm. Until dad got fired and my mother was the breadwinner of the family. Not long after that, my dad started coming home later than usual, drunk and wasted, sauntering around the house spitting profanities. 

Now as I stood at my doorstep, my body was heavily filled with dread. Brandon should be coming home any minute from now and there was a little time for me to clean up all the mess in there. I opened the front door and slid in. I was greeted by the sight of broken glasses and vomits around the coffee table. I quickly opened up the windows so that the air could be ventilated. As I swept the glass away from the floor, I spotted a foot sticking out under the sofa. No surprise; this time he decided to pass out under the sofa. Agitated, I crossed over to the other side of the room, took a glass of cold water and splashed it over his face. 

“Wake up!”, I screamed in frustration but only to find out that he was not reacting. I squatted down and shook his shoulders, inhaling the stench of liquor, but I noticed that he was not breathing. I grabbed his shoulders and shook them so hard his head flopped from side to side. “Get up! Come on, Dad, please, this is not funny. Get up!” Breathing hard, I stood up shakily as I looked at his unmoving body on the ground. This time he was not going to shout at me for waking him up, he was really and truly dead. Calling the ambulance was not a great idea, I could picture the scene in my mind; the neighbours glaring at us with disgust, police everywhere asking all sorts of questions, newspapers with headlines “Drunk man dies under a pile of garbage.”  What about Brandon’s friends? He had just made good buddies and now they might turn their backs on him if they knew what happened. 

Starting a fire was harder than I thought. I heaved up a bunch of newspapers Dad collected for years and stashed them onto the broken heater. Even though it was broken, a hard smack would whirl it back to live. A small spark started and slowly engulfed the entire collection of newspapers. The fire creeped up the walls and curtains. I waited for it to become bigger as I needed to make it look as if I was in the middle of changing when the fire started. I remember banging the back door, screaming for help and my neighbours forming a crowd around the house. I looked at the house, which was filled with uncountable memories, burning up and collapsing down. I had kept our secret safe.