Flying

When I get home, no one is there. Mom’s been long gone for years now. Some people think that’s part of my troubles. Poor girl has no maternal role model. Who knows where Dad is. He likes to fly too. Only his fuel is Sam Adams. Now that I’m a scandal, he drinks a lot more. Poor girl has got a drunk for a daddy.

My phone is buzzing inside my pocket. Only one person ever calls me. Please leave me alone. I hold my breath and slide it out. It’s voicemails. Seven voicemails.

“It’s me, Kenneth.”

“Sweetheart, please pick up.”

“Don’t be a bitch.”

“We can work this out.”

“I’m not mad that you told.”

“You got me fired, you stupid bitch.”

“I still love you.”

I thought it would be over when I told. It’s not. I don’t want to see Kenneth, but he wishes I would. He calls a lot. He comes to the house every so often, if he’s feeling really desperate. Which he seems to feel a lot, probably because he’s an unemployed thirty-year-old man, with a tarnished reputation, who is in love with a sixteen-year-old girl. When I don’t let him in, he sits on the porch with his face pressed up to the front window and cries/yells/pleads. I think that half of him hates me and half of him thinks I’m his soul mate.