Color my Life with the Chaos of Trouble

The Beckett’s fought, a lot, especially at night, probably because that was the time when neither of them was at work. My bedroom was parallel to the side of their property making all the noise from their home, float straight into my room, while I was studying, on the phone or attempting to sleep. I couldn’t help but wonder how their children were able to sleep, maybe sometimes, after a while you become immune to the screaming, I didn’t know, I had never lived like that.

That of course is not to say that my parents never fought, that would most defiantly be a lie. My parents had what I would call disagreements which may escalate to minor fights however, nowhere near the scale or ferocity of the Johnson’s. The issue with my parents was that they were never together long enough to actually start fighting. My dad would be away for nine months, back for two, away for a year, back for three so that by the time problems did actually start to arise, he would leave and the issue would be forgotten about. It was like his job was a perfect way to keep the family perfect, no one would fight when he came back because we were so excited to have him around that everything that would usually bother us, we would forget.

Of course when dad was gone the four of us would fight, we would fight over anything and everything, that’s just the way we were. James and Alex would fight over which of them gets to be player one on the play station. Mom would fight with them for never getting up from the couch, she would then set her sights on me, and my messy room which would then cause me to fight with her over my lack of time and busy lifestyles. We were a family of strong personalities and we would clash, quite often.

Over time, there was one thing that I began to notice, the Beckett’s unstable relationship was having a massive effect on William. I was sure that it was his room directly opposite mine and whenever his parents were fighting, there would always be the glow of his lamp on, sometimes he’d try to drown out the yelling with music and other times I could see the outline of his body, pacing throughout his room as he listened to his parents bickering.
It was enough for me to stop being such a bitch to him that being said, I hadn’t spun a total 360 on him, no of course not, think about it, was that something I would do? No, I was just, bearable towards him, I wasn’t as cruel to him, I didn’t shut him down as often, however, that was only when we were alone. When he was with his soccer friends, he was back to his normal arrogant self, and I was also able to be myself again.

Last night the Beckett’s were at their worst, every word, every frustrated sigh was heard throughout the street. It made me wonder why some people continued to try and make their relationships work when all their doing is destroying themselves and the people around them. Not to mention that they were preventing me from getting any type of sleep at all, honestly, at all. I was pretty sure William was still up too, his light was still on, yeah, I didn’t sleep with the blinds down, I liked to be woken up naturally in the morning, by the rising sun.
However, two hours sleep isn’t enough to ensure that I could be energized enough to put up with the fantastic Alison or ensure sufficient time to make myself look half decent for school. For today, I was going to have to work the slowly drying hair, jeans and an oversized Ellwood sweater look, I was sure the girls would not be pleased with that.

When I walked out to my car that morning William was already there leaning against the passenger side door. His hair was an even bigger mess and there were dark circles under his eyes, making them seem even more blue than usual.

“Morning” I smiled sympathetically as I approached the car.

“I’m sorry” he quickly blurted out.

“About what?”

“About last night, I am so sorry about them”

“Oh”

William sighed, running a hand though his hair “Sometimes I don’t even know why they bother, really, I’m-”

It was times like these where you couldn’t help but feel sorry for him “How long have you been out here?”

William glanced down at his watch less wrist “I dunno, an hour or something, I had to get out of there, the tens-”

“Have you had breakfast?”

“Nah not yet, I’ll get a big lunch”

I rolled my eyes, “No you won’t, get inside now”

“Fuck off, I’m not going back in there” he spat, so much venom in his voice that it was painful to receive those words, even for someone like me.

“I meant into my house idiot, you can have some breakfast and I’ll have time to do my hair.”

“Your hair’s fine”

“It is a frizz ball” I commented.

“Yeah” William smiled as we walked up the stairs to my house “but it’s a pretty frizz ball, I like it on you.”

Inside there was my mother, fussing around, cleaning up after my brothers and muttering the new Britney Spears song under her breath. My brothers were sitting around the table eating fruit loops in silence, it was obvious that they didn’t get much sleep.

“Hi mom” I chirped as I strolled into the kitchen.

“Olivia, William, why aren’t you two at school yet?”

“We’re going in later, William’s family have run out of breakfast, can he get some here, he’s got soccer training today” I lied.

“Oh, okay then, William what would like?”

“Yay!” I smiled and ran upstairs to fix my hair.

“I liked it better when it was a frizz” William smiled, his mouth full of fruit loops. I never straightened my hair, I just put in a frizz removing moose which would tone down the wild mane of dirty blonde hair which both my mother and father possessed.

“Oh well, you’ll get over it” I smiled “let’s go!”