Complete Unknown

Every morning I get up and wonder the exact same things as I did the day before.

I wonder if my mother will ever change, I wonder if my father ever thinks about me, and I wonder if I will survive the day.

Hope—that’s what makes me think about things I know in my heart will never change. Everyone knows it. It’s that feeling you get when everything’s gone to shit and there’s absolutely no reason to believe anything will get better, and then suddenly you feel like hey… maybe if you persevere, you just might get through it.

Being a teenager’s hard. Confusing—but you’re not alone. Don’t let go. This is the shit my guidance counsellor spouts every lunch period, Monday to Friday, twenty minutes at a time.
Twenty minutes wasted, every single day.

“Hannah! You’re going to miss the bus,”

I don’t know why Mom bothers to tell me this; it’s not as if she would be willing to give me a ride to school in the case that I do miss my bus. Which I have before, and I’ve walked to school those days. Nothing out of the norm, and Mommy Dearest has never been so interested in the subject. So what’s different about today?

The curiosity manages to get me out of bed, and I squint while I glance over at my alarm clock and pull my curtains over at the same time—the outside light doesn’t do any good to my bleary, sleep-deprived eyes, but it does the job in waking me up.

7:55. I have exactly five minutes to get to my bus stop at the end of our street. I know by now not to rush; in the end it will only screw me up and slow me down even more. I methodically change out of my PJ’s and throw on some fresh clothes: a plain blue t-shirt, a hoodie, and a pair of jeans. My backpack is slung over my back before I even realize what I’m doing, and I throw my hair up into a messy ponytail before yanking my door open and heading down stairs.

The smell of breakfast hits me. Bacon, eggs, maybe French toast. But none of it’s made for me. It’s for Bill, Mom’s monster of a fiancé. I peek into the kitchen, finding only him there sitting at the table, leisurely picking at the breakfast he had made for him with a scowl.

What’s wrong, your bacon not crisped enough for you Bill?

On the table beside him, his holster, gun and badge are discarded carelessly while he eats before he leaves. Ladies and gentlemen, Bakersfield’s finest police officer.

Just as he looks up at me, I turn and hike across the hallway to the living room. Where Mom always is every morning, watching TV.

Only this time I don’t hear Tyra Banks droning through the television or Dr. Phil giving shoddy advice. I hear mom, talking on the phone. I pause just outside the threshold, having no qualms about eavesdropping. I know who this could be—I know how long it’s been since he last called. Or Mom called him… whatever. It’s the only reason why she would bother to try and get me out of the house earlier than usual.

“Just checking in, Haner.”

My breath catches and my heart stumbles when I hear her speak. It’s my father. These are the conversations I never get to be a part of—Bill kicks me out of the house when Mom talks to Brian. Maybe Bill is still engrossed in his apparently sub-par breakfast. Maybe he didn’t see me, maybe today I’ll get a little insight into who my father really is.

But I refuse to get my hopes up.

My father. How weird does that sound? I don’t know the guy. I know his name is on a couple of different sheets of paper, except my birth certificate. That was left blank, and I’m lead to believe that it was intentional on my ‘father’s part.

Brian’s part.

Until a few years ago… until I was old enough to snoop around and not get caught in the act, I didn’t even know that much about him. My curiosity is a killer, always has been. I suspect it will be my downfall. Now, all I have is a name with no face to tack onto it. When the name first registered into my mind along with ‘father’, I tried to picture him. What he looked like. Unfortunately, whenever I heard the name I thought of a balding, uptight middle-aged man. But that’s not Mom’s type—mom likes to go for ‘bad boys’, the guys she thinks she can fix—like Bill, for instance.

A cruddy patrol officer that always gets stuck in the worst parts of the city, he’s been at it for nearly fifteen years and isn’t moving up on the force anytime soon. He always tells Mom he’s going to get a raise, that next time he’s not going to waste so much money at the casino when he goes out with his friends, that he’s going to try as hard as he can to keep this ‘family’ together.

Mom holds onto that, perhaps a little too tightly. Even when we’re swimming in bills and he comes home with a case of beer instead of the groceries she asked him to pick up, she still fucking clings onto that. That one single hope, out of all the ones she could possibly hold onto, and she chooses him. There’s no such thing as having a reasonable relationship with her daughter. There’s only Bill.

“She’s as fine as she’s always been, dandy actually.”

Me? Are they really talking about me? Before today I always imagined that the only thing being discussed would be money, not my wellbeing. Because that’s not how Mom rolls. Money first and foremost.

Still… the chance is still there. I squash the feeling that’s quickly building in my chest: expectation, hope. Look where it’s gotten Mom. Her world revolves around keeping Bill happy despite all his ‘misgivings’ and paying the rent on this stupid, overpriced undersized townhouse. I refuse to reach such a point—I’d rather feel nothing at all.

I hear the chair that Bill’s sitting in groan and squeak under his weight as he pushes it back from the table, and I inwardly groan. So much for that.

“Hannah,” His mouth is full as he talks and staggers toward me, trying to keep quiet. I roll my eyes, my lip curling upward at the sight of him. If there’s one man in this world that I hate, it’s him. “You’re gonna be late for school, get out of here.”

He grabs hold of my backpack and pushes me toward the door a little too roughly. Whipping around, I glare at him in a silent order not to touch me again. I’m busted. There’s no point in resisting any further. With my dignity still intact, I adjust my backpack on my shoulders, slip my shoes on and stalk out the front door, slamming it as I do so.

The mid-winter Californian air hits me with a sudden force, but I trudge on down the steps and onto the sidewalk. Winter for us is rain and mid-fifties in temperature, and today is no exception. The fog that settles over most of the San Joaquin Valley around this time of year is thick and dense—I can’t even see fifty feet in front of myself. In other words, these conditions aren’t exactly safe for a klutz like myself to walk in. I could walk straight into traffic and not know it until I’m picked off by a car.

But again, it’s not as if my mother cares in particular about my wellbeing.

I don’t have a chance at making the bus—it’s long gone. I’m walking to school today. As I meander through the fog, past the streets and hear the city waking up to face the day, my spirits drop even more. I’m just a kid from the inner city, caught up with what I don’t have in life instead of what I do have. God only knows people have it worse than me, and I bet they would happily deal with a controlling, obsessive-compulsive mother and a jerk for a step-father over what they have to go through in life. I hate myself for feeling so entitled. Why do I feel like I have to know my father?

There’s nothing even remotely special about me. There’s no reason for my father to want to know me. There’s no reason for me to hope that my situation will change. I’m going to grow up not knowing my father and hating the parents I do have—I’m going to grow up into one huge, hateful contradiction.

Sometimes I blame people like my guidance counsellor. Filling us up with crap about how the world isn’t as bad of a place as we think it is, if we just wait it fucking out, things will change. But how can you change a father that doesn’t want to see you, a mother that doesn’t care, and a step-father that gambles all of his money away?

Explain that to me, Ms. Roberts, I think bitterly. Help me see the bright side in all of this. Help me persevere.

I’ve persevered—for fucking years now. And what has it gotten me? A tight little ball of pure rage has settled in my chest, right where my heart should be. Building up, every day… getting bigger, more unbearable, waiting, mocking, laughing at me. Wanting me to snap and break.

All I have is hate. I don’t have a heart, and I most certainly don’t have hope.