I hate the bus. I pick my feet up just enough to avoid tripping on the clunky black steps as I walk into the most annoying fourteen minutes of my day. After settling into a seat in the front, as to be far from the back-of-the-bus party, I plug my earbuds in and turn the music up as loud as possible with faith that it will tune out the crowd. 
My hopes are high though, because cross country starts next week. Besides music, cross country is the only other thing I enjoy. When I’m running, my movement detaches any lingering problems I had that day, and I feel myself get lighter as my brain releases the burdened stress. Also, when I have to stay after for practice, my dad lets me drive my brother’s old car to school. Then I don’t have to tell the kid behind me to stop kicking my seat and I can listen to my music without my ears ringing for the rest of the day.
Music is what gets me through the day. Over-confident teachers and an abundance of less-than-satisfactory grades fade to grey when I can disappear into the void of varying verses and melodies. The world just seems to spin a little smoother when I can at least struggle through my assignments with the company of my favorite songs.
Reminded of the tragedy that is my grades, I ponder which topics I’ll need to discuss with my parents to steer the conversation in the opposite direction of my English test I got back today. I develop a mental list of distracting topics: ‘cross country, the weather, maybe politics?’
The bus halts to a stop and I snap back to the world, this is my stop. I thank Meredith, my bus driver, and begin walking to my house while the mental stress from school continues to sink into my mind. After last year, I dropped all my honors courses because of my profuse failure. This is the fourth test I’ve failed this year. I studied for hours, and I’ve stayed after several times in Ms. Dunham’s room for help, but I haven’t improved at all. I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong.
I turn onto my street.
As I saunter down the sidewalk, I begin kicking a small rock. With every few steps it would slow enough for me to kick it again: A temporary distraction. When I kick it too hard, I let it roll into the grass then retrieve it and continue the cycle. I wonder what it feels like to be that rock. If it can feel me kicking it, or feel its outsides being continuously smacked against the asphalt as it hurdles each crack in the path. I think, ‘I am the rock, life is the kicker, and the crack in the path is school.’ I stop. A sudden sympathy arises in my mind for the little rock being bullied down the sidewalk. I pick it up gently and set it along the side of my mother’s garden next to a cluster of maroon petunias before walking inside.
I open the door and apprehensively echo a “hello?” through the halls, hoping that my luck had changed and my parents weren’t home. I wait for a response, nothing. A sigh of relief escapes my mouth as I drop my bag and turn to grab-- “Hello? Mason, is that you?” Oh no. My dad appears from behind the screen door on our back porch; he was reading. “How was school?” He asks. I respond, “the usual… but I have a lot of homework so I’m gonna be in my room for a while.” I turn and hurry into my room. “Alright, did you happen to get back that--?” I closed my door. I wait a few seconds before hearing him return to the porch. Wow, I couldn’t have been more obvious.
I don’t actually have any school work that I need to do—or rather none that I’m going to do—it was just the first thing that popped into my brain. All this stress is making my head hurt, I lay down and close my eyes as my neck relaxes onto my feathery pillow. My sudden exhaustion caused by lack of sleep hits me as I slowly doze off into a world where my problems don’t exist.
I wake suddenly to heavy fists clashing against the shaking wood of my door. The sound makes my skin jump as my body is still waking up from my nap. The door swings open and hits the wall heavily, leaving a dent in the plywood and chipping off bits of gray paint. My mom stands in the doorway with her phone in hand and her other arm flailing angrily as she begins to yell. She yells about how my teacher emailed her and is “concerned about my education.” It’s just another test, I didn’t think Ms. Dunham would make a huge deal about it because it’s not like it’s the first one I’ve failed.
“This is unacceptable young man!” She shouts as she begins to slowly travel further into my room. “Your father and I work hard everyday at our jobs to make money for you to be able to live a healthy life, and you can’t even pass a test? How hard could it have possibly been?!?!” She is now hovering over my bed panting heavily from her rampage, and I smell it.
Her breath reeks of liquor, again. She continues yelling, “Why can’t you be more like your brother? He studied, got good grades, and actually cared about getting a decent education!” That’s it. “Mom, don’t you dare compare me to him, that’s a line that not even you can cross even though I know you’re just drunk, again. And I do care, I do try, it just doesn’t work and I don’t know why!” I choke back my tears as I feel all my problems rush back to my head and the world around me starts spinning. There is an odd sense of calmness in her voice as she mutters “What did you just say to me?” There is a short pause. “I asked you a question.” Another short pause. She raises her hand high in the air and slaps me with all her anger. Every nerve in the left side of my face burns and I see my dad through the eye I’m not covering with my hand.
“Honey, I think he gets it” he says as he begins to guide her out of my room. She fights back, “no, he doesn’t, he’s lazy, and ungrateful, and he needs to be punished.” She pulls her arm back again but my dad grabs it and pulls her back, “Well, I think he’s been punished enough for today,” before dragging her into their bedroom and forcing her to lay down and sleep it off.
Tears are streaming down my face, but I sit cold on my bed. I shouldn’t be this stunned, this isn’t the first time she’s gotten drunk and said something hurtful. She isn’t a bad mom, in fact, when she’s sober, she’s not just my mom, but she’s one of my best friends. Then when she drinks, she morphs into a person who makes me fear falling asleep. A person who makes me dread coming home after school. A person who I am trying to escape from every time I run. A person who doesn’t remember her own son’s death.
This thought strikes my mind and the ice in my veins shatters; I begin to sob. My brother died last year, he was 17. He and some friends were drinking and went for a joyride. They hit a tree, and nobody survived. He was much like my mother in the sense that he was an amazing student with a glowing future ahead of him, and he was always there for me, but then he drank.
These thoughts have cluttered my mind since the day he died and they never get me anywhere. I wiped the tears from my face and feel the heat radiating off my cheek. I grab my water bottle and take a sip before holding it to my face to ease the stinging pain. Normally I wouldn’t be able to sleep after a nap, but I just want to to forget, just to disappear for a couple hours before troubling my mind one again with this madness I call my life. I lay my head back down and close my eyes. I feel my thoughts begin to float away, and I hear my door crack open: my dad, I assume. I slow my breathing. I don’t want to be consoled, I want to forget. He stands there for a few seconds and closes the door. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
I wake up and get ready early as to leave before my parents. I grab a banana for breakfast before quietly heading out. I carefully close the door and start toward the bus stop. I see the rock from the previous day, and just stare at it for a moment. I picked it up and threw it into the trees as far as I could. It’s just a rock, it’s not important, and I walk off.
Once I get to school, I walk the halls with no direction for a couple minutes while I’m waiting for the bell to ring. Sleeping did not help because my head still hurts and my mind is still clouded with so many thoughts and problems. I see a group of friends from cross country, they are talking about tryouts. “Hey Mason! We were just talking about you, how’re you doing?” I know how I am doing, and that is terrible. I can’t be happy and it feels like life is constantly beating down on me as hard as it can as I am struggling to stay on my feet. The world is trying to make me snap in two and I feel more hopeless than I ever have in my entire life. I smile, “I’m good.”