Fuck it.. None of this matters anyway.
I snagged my jacket from the shower-rod, catching one last glance in the mirror and that same hurtful pang dropped into my stomach as it had every day for years. I've tried to place this feeling many times, but it wasn't the annoyance of a teacher calling me out because I never participated. Not quite the resentment or anger when mom lovingly told the story of deciding to birth me, knowing she had nothing, like it was some saint-like decision not aborting me like her mother wanted. Those emotions trickled through as if I were a leaky faucet, one wasted drip at a time.. but this feeling formed jagged ice and blue-flame fire, both fighting sublimation inside of me. Until I honestly didn't care whether there were ashes or icebergs left.
No noise for forty-five minutes, they must have passed out good this time. Slowly, I turned the flakey painted doorknob, putting slight upward pressure on the door as it opened, enough that the hinges worked with me to stay quiet. Boots in hand, soft steps down the hall. Normally I wouldn't give a damn waking the bastard after he got back from a three week hitch, but he came back in a foul way after losing hands of cards and I don't have time to stir that pot of boiling crap.
3:44AM
Peggy swirled around my legs, surely wanting food, as I also debated checking the kitchen for anything edible. Unlikely. I scooped up the nappy cat before she could interrupt my quiet get-away, poured out a bit of kibble then slammed the door shut as I left. Screw their sleep, I pulled my boots on, hood up and descended the rickety stairs of the tattered building we've called home for as long as I can remember. Something about the stray cat never going hungry, unlike us, pissed me off. I do feel bad for Peggers though, being stuck in that unit for life after mom abducted her from around a market dumpster she was diving in.
3:50AM
This never gets easier.. Having a real job.. About a year ago when I turned sixteen my mom was doing alright by her terms and actually bought a two-dollar box of cake mix for me. She rarely cooked more than breakfast and microwave meals so it was a shock to see her pulling a small round cake pan out of the oven that afternoon. I savored the warm cake and the unit smelled like a bakery instead of the usual musty, dusty odor. It was one of the lonely times she seemed independent, free and capable. I knew that when I turned seventeen in a couple weeks she may not remember my birthday again, but that's not new. Her husband, Paul, came in from the job a couple days later to see a leftover cake pan in the cold-box and determined it was time for me to get a job and start "contributing to the household, unless I was useless like my mother".
He didn't know I had been finding odd jobs since I was thirteen within my classes, but he also didn't question how we survived, while gone for weeks, without any money coming from my mother. That was when I asked Lenny for a job at the dough shop. He was excited to have the help and even if it meant waking up at 3AM, I liked working while the world slept.
I lit a smoke and stopped at the back corner of Legume's Dough Shop. Watching the smoke roll off of my breath, mixing into the darkness of the sky, feeding the hushed lighting of the street, it was one of my favorite parts of having to get this damned job. It was so quiet.
"Hallo Lùce, how goes it?", I heard him from my left and jumped a bit.
"Ah, it goes, Barn.. You're here early.", I managed to stammer out. Almost choked from that asshole popping up like that.
"Yeeep, two ticks til four, don't want to be late.", Barn hobbled through the side door with a disapproving glance and a wind carried the smells of glazed bake and maple sausages toward me. Another part I favored, Legume's smelled amazing every day.
Barn, however, was probably my least favorite part of this job. He was an older guy who seemed displeased by everything and happy about it. Here to barely work and criticize those who are. Not sure why Lenny keeps him around but he's normally on the mid-morning shift. I stamped out the dying end of my joint and went to clock in, wishing I had packed a bit more in it since my quiet morning just got derailed.