Skies Do Fall

It wasn't a question anymore. It had happened.

I knew this, beared this in my soul over the few weeks that had sluggishly passed by. My father, the one person who seemed to know me better than anyone else, with the exception of God, had gone and risked our family's happiness with the complicated, mixed equation of sheets and sweat.

If you haven't guessed the obvious, the inferior truth was that my father had cheated on my mom, on my brother, on the rules of marriage, on me. And that was only a douse of the conflict.

My beloved dad had been doing this for days, weeks, months...years. Two years. During 730 days plus some, this filthy betrayal had gone on. And I was just finding out now?

And that brought another issue to spend my restless nights contemplating over....

Now that I had this gain of knowledge, was it my responsibility to spread the news? My mother more than deserved to know what my father was really doing during those 'late nights at the office' and the other logical excuses he had cooked up. But, was it in my place to supply her with the truth?

If it was under my wing to do so, than I honestly don't think I could do it anyways. My sensitive sixteen year-old heart just couldn't handle that kind of pressure. It was in no better state than it had been on that night I had proven my long-doubted suspicions as correct.

All these questions, wonders, concerns bobbled about in my mind during the last, long-drawn few weeks of summer before it was back to teachers and text books.

I should have been happy, soaking up the Sun in the humid hell Las Vegas endowed during the three months of escape from knowledge. I should have been at the mall, at the pool, at the arcades and parks, out-and-about just like every other propped-up, sixteen year-old girl was doing during this time that I spent mourning and pondering. But I wasn't.

In fact, the only real friend I had was my older brother, Tristan. And then there was Sids, pretty much my only girl friend. Sids went to highschool with me and we hung around with a broader group of girls that could slightly relate to me, but really, only Sids understood me.

I wasn't socially deprived or acted like I belonged in the "previously home schooled" crowd. I was just...different. Not a misfit freak, but not a total babe that got asked out every other day. And yet, here I was, stuck with this issue that might have been just enough to annually book a psychiatrist for even some fully-grown adults. My sweet sixteen years were past flushed down the toilet at this point. They were rotting in the sewer.

The day my life gained some form of meaning again began with everything opposite of typical....

Since that night my worst nightmares came true, 94.899% of my time was spent in bed. I never slept, but rather, just sat there, staring at the ceiling panels while twisting my mind into new dimensions of thinking. It was a sad way to spend the day, and even though my entire family (even my betraying scum of a father) and Sids tried to coax me into acting like my old, up-beat self again, I continued the same routine every day. But, truth was that I was a changed teenager, and I could never be like that bright, young adult again.

So, since I was that changed-for-the-worst girl, at 2:33 P.M of that day, I was doing what a depressed being did best...being lazy. I was curled up into a human ball, letting the few urging tears slip out from beneath my eyelids, when out of nowhere, the glass of my bedroom window shattered.

And when I say shattered, I don't mean a petite crack that could easily be repaired formed. I mean, every piece of glass on that window was now scattered across my bedroom floor.

Puzzled and beyond pissed off, I swept up from my snug position underneath my nest of blankets and staggered to my feet. Cautiously, I avoided the shards of glass and tip-toed to what was left of my window. I rubbed away the residing tears that brimmed my eyes, examined the area of the glass graveyard, and then swallowed down my knot of fury so I wouldn't explode with rage.

I winced as I pulled back my sheer curtains, squinting against the sunlight that beamed down at me. My eyes took a longer than necessary time to adjust to the sudden change in lighting since this has been the first time in days, and perhaps even weeks, that I had bothered to look outside the walls of my room.

When I could finally see clearly, I immediately was taken aback at the sight that shone back against my eyes.

A boy was staring right up into my window, squinting against the sun, but still managing to smile innocently at me. He wore a thin muscle shirt, revealing more skin than I was used to seeing from a teenage boy even if my household did include an older brother. The boy was probably my age, if not older, and was lean and lanky with untamable, deep brunette hair. He was quite attractive, even though I wasn't about to confess it right out to him.

I was suddenly self-conscience about how, in that point in time, I looked like George Lopez on a bad hair day, and it was only then that I wished I would have bothered to touch up my appearance before I ripped open the curtains. But, it was too late now, and the boy below would have to try and contain his disgust at the sight of me during this encounter.

The gangling boy smiled, revealing a pair of wired braces, and then shouted in a cheery voice, "Hey there!" He used the arm that wasn't shielding his eyes from the Sun's blinding rays to flail one of his lanky arms into the air in a friendly gesture.

I meekly waved back and smiled sheepishly, replying in a feeble tone, "Hi."

The boy grinned wider at my shy response, probably guessing my thoughts of how he had a winning outlook, and then reduced his smile to a sheepish grin like my own. "I'm...I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to. You see, I get easily distracted, and it's best not to trust me with a baseball when there are breakable objects around...."

Furrowing my eyebrows in confusion, I questioned, "What are you talking about?"

The boy sighed, breaking his gaze with me to look down at his ragged Sketchers as he stumbled through his explanation, "You see…I might have...well...I might have broken your window on accident with a baseball...."

It took a minute for the realization to dawn on me, but when it did, my boiling temper returned. Clenching my fists until my knuckles went pale white, I asked in monotone, "So that was you, was it?"

Detecting no sign of emotion in my voice, the boy met my blank gaze once more. His face contorted into befuddlement at my unreadable mood as he answered with confusion underlying in his tone, "Uh...yeah, that was me."

Clenching my jaw, I responded between my teeth, "Well, I'm guessing you want your baseball back, am I right?"

The boy's thick eyebrows mashed together, replying in more of a question than an answer, "Um...yes?"

I gave a quick scan around me, not even long enough to make out the shape of my bed, before returning back to the boy's direction. Feigning disappointment, I replied with a dejected snap of my fingers, "I'm sorry. I couldn't find it."

The boy, still beyond confused, frowned. "But...that wasn't even my ball."

Switching my superficial grimace to an expression that better revealed the raging emotions inside of me, I snapped, "Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you threw that ball at my damn window, asshole!"

With that, I ripped the thin curtains shut on his still-puzzled face without waiting for a response.

Sighing, I wounded back to the mess of glass upon my stained, beige carpet. I carefully pranced through the maze of shards to the trashcan by my door. Then, I returned to the pieces of what used to make up my window, picking up each of the fragments and disposing them into the can.

Once I was all through and every last piece of glass was attended to, I slumped onto the edge of my unkept bed. For some odd reason, I didn't want to return to my state of glumness where all I did was sob and think and sob and think and sob and think. I didn't want to have to keep reliving the moment when my sky fell down. I wanted to do something.

Deciding that my window should probably get fixed before my so-called dad found out and tried to beat that poor, skinny boy into a pulp, I got up to get ready to go to a repair shop. Sure, I could just call them, but I now yearned to get out of this room. This confined room that was suffocating me into sorrow.

I got up from my pondering position to take a very fore-longed shower. Once I was out of the steamed bathroom, I began to rummage through my drawers until I crossed the outfit I found perfect in my taste of the day. After pinning my hair up in a moist ponytail and deciding it was too casual a mission for makeup, I was ready to hit the road.

I snatched up my cellphone and wallet, tucking them both into the safe folds of my back pockets, and then took an immersed breath, gathering up enterprise. After my preparation, I lurched my bedroom door open and took the first step out of my room since weeks of sorrow.