Quicksand

As usual, being irritatingly unpunctual just so happened to be my forte.
However, once more it was not entirely my own fault. Having stayed up late last night awaiting the arrival of my, once again, drunk mother I neglected to set my alarm and only when I heard the churn of the garbage truck outside my house which, unlike me, arrives promptly at nine fifteen every Wednesday, did I realise I was late.
“Excuse me,” I practically shrieked, racing past an elderly woman walking her dog, taking up more than her fair share of the footpath.
I took solace in the fact that my best friend would cover for me as he usually did in these common situations.
Seeing my destination in the distance, I sprinted ahead, feeling just how surprisingly unfit I was, considering that this exact situation was a common occurrence in my life. I raced up the stairs and through the main doors, I knew my first challenge would be the worst, and that would be facing my least favourite teacher.
“Late once again, Miss Trent,” he said with a sneer.
“Sorry,” I panted. “Rabid dog,”
“Just like the several other rabid dogs over the past week. If it happens again I will have to notify someone,” Professor Daly said, peering at me over his glasses.
I nodded and took my seat next to my previously mentioned best friend.
“Rabid dog?” he hissed, trying to avoid being caught talking.
“First thing I thought of,” I whispered back.
“He did ask me where you were, I almost said you were on a mission to save planet earth, but then I thought it would be awkward if you didn’t arrive in a Batman costume,”
“Idiot,” I scoffed. “If I really were saving the earth I would arrive as Bruce Wayne,”
Parker chortled subtly and continued pretending to pay attention.
I exhaled a sigh of relief. The worst was over and now all I had to worry about was surviving the remainder of the day knowing that my mother was at home with a cool towel on her forehead and a glass of ice water beside her. Hopefully she would stay home this time…
“Diana drink again?” Parker asked, knowing the truth to my tardiness.
I nodded and grimaced. It was not uncommon for my mother to go out for one or two drinks after work, which would soon turn into three or four or seven.
“I can come over tonight if you want?” he asked.
“Yeah, that’d be great, Park,” I grinned. “Unless that was just a pity offer,”
“This whole friendship is based on pity, I thought you knew that by now, Beth,” Parker said with a grin.
“Go to hell,” I snapped childishly only to have Professor Daly glare at me with a pointed look.
I stuck my head down as Parker chortled beside me, trying to concentrate on what little amount of time was left in this algebra lesson before dealing with the medium security prison of a high school I attended.

Having been best friends since the beginning of high school, Parker Shepard and I were almost inseparable after bonding over a mutual hatred of the most popular, and worldly, girl in our grade. After that, the similarities continued to roll in, until we were in tenth grade and kissed at a party. Shortly after that Parker told me that he was gay. He insisted that I was the one that turned him with the most awful kiss he had ever received.
“…Most spankable ass I have ever seen in my seventeen years of existence,”
I gave a false snort to indicate waking up. “Oh shit, I’m sorry Parker, were you still talking?”
Parker stuck his foot in front of my back leg to trip me up as we walked home. “You’re sure as shit I was still talking about Grady’s ass. If he were gay, I would do wicked, wicked things to that boy,”
“What if he wasn’t gay but just unconscious?”
“Oh God yes! I would still do wicked, wicked things to him while he slept,” Parker joked.
“That is, without a doubt, the creepiest thing you have ever said to me,” I said smacking his arm.
“Really? I’m sure I’ve said creepier,” he smirked, rounding the corner before my house.
“You know what? I’m sure you have too,” I nodded as I wedged my key into the front door of my house, throwing my weight against the ancient and decrepit front door to open it.
Living on a single mother’s salary showed in the form of my house. Living in a one bedroom, one bathroom shack resulted in me sleeping on the couch and sharing a closet with my mother, which explained why many nights she arrived home with my hip hugging jeans on.
Parker, having been to my house several times, immediately went to the kitchen-cum-dining room and opened the fridge. I, however, went to my mother’s bedroom to find it empty. As expected.
“Well, we have the house to ourselves,” I called dully.
Parker looked up and gave a sultry, lascivious wink causing me to crack a smile at the moreover unfunny situation.
Playing along, I pressed my body against his. “Oh Parker, I never knew you to have such heterosexual feelings for me,”
“You know, I have to say, all of your body is touching me and I don’t even get a twitch down there,” Parker said in a flat tone causing me to double over in hysterics.
I turned to the other room, allowing Parker to slap me on the butt as I passed. Turning to the room that housed the small television I own, I turned it onto a lame talk show.
“We should’ve gone to my house,” Parker commented, eating a packet of chips. “I have a much better TV to watch black women shout about their ‘baby daddy’,”
“Yeah, why didn’t we go there?” I asked.
“Because I am a lovely human being,” Parker said putting his legs around me on the couch. “Why don’t you stay over tonight?”
I gave Parker a dubious look. “Firstly, it’s a school night. Secondly, my mother would-,”
“Diana would probably tell the lamp she believes to be you, to sleep tight and then fall asleep in an alcohol induced coma,” Parker sprouted.
I knew he was right, but it still stung a little.
We both sat down to watch trashy television shows, watching as the day slowly turned to dusk and a gentle hum fell over the neighbourhood. The dusk quickly became night and it was soon becoming apparent that Diana would not be home tonight.
“Yet again,” Parker sighed, shifting his position so his knee was annoyingly digging into my back.
I nodded and stretched, causing my shirt to ride up and expose my midriff. The only good thing about my mother not returning home would be the fact that I would receive a good night’s sleep in her bed.
“Staying the night?” I questioned to Parker who gave a shrug.
“Maybe, maybe no-,” he broke off with a quizzical look out the window exposing my always vacant driveway.
“What?”
“Why are there cops here?” he asked.
I gave a shrug as if it were no big deal. “You know half my neighbours are in drug raids, right?”
“Uh huh. Then why are they coming to your front door?”
I stopped and ran to the front where, indeed, two police officers were crossing the brown grass of my pathetic front lawn to come to my door. I froze, as did Parker, until a sharp rap was at the door.
Hesitantly I answered the door, looking like a frightened, timid mouse in comparison to the two burly and heavily equipped police officers.
“Are you Elizabeth Trent?” the brunette woman queried. I nodded as Parker came around my side.
“May we come in?”
“What’s going on?” Parker voiced the question running around my head like a steam train.
The rest of the words spoken happened in a blur. Something concerning alcohol and something else concerning a car. My mind was fuzzy and all that could keep me grounded was Parker’s steady hand on my waist, keeping me centred.
Even when the police officers gave me a sympathetic glance, all I could remember was my head hitting the floor as I promptly fainted.

“Beth? Beth! Fuck me- Beth, can you hear me at all?”
My eyes fluttered open to see Parker waving his hand at my face, attempting to cool me down. I felt palmy and almost like I might vomit.
“What happened?” I questioned, hoping that everything was a nightmare, wanting Parker to clarify that I drank some milk past its expiry date and hallucinated the entire evening.
“Beth,” Parker gave me a look that suggested insanity.
“Parker, please,” I pleaded.
“Diana. She’s in the hospital,” Parker confirmed what I believed to be my worst fear.
“What happened?” I repeated again, feeling my shirt soaked through with sweat.
“Beth, you need to calm down, you’re going to pass out again,”
Glancing out the window I observed a pitch-black scene. It was still night, and Parker had stayed throughout the evening to monitor my wellbeing. I was in my mother’s bedroom, on her bed with a thin sheet covering my legs.
“She got too drunk, didn’t she?” I croaked. “She got hit. By a car.”
Parker nodded, his usually straight black hair on an angle as if a hand had been run through it stressfully multiple times.
“But, Beth” he said soothingly. “She’s in a coma. She’s not dead,”
I couldn’t control it, the tears started to stream down my cheeks. Immediately, Parker was at my side with his arms wrapped around my waist while I sobbed into his shoulder, staining his favourite band t-shirt.
“Wh-what am I going to do?” I blubbered pathetically.
“You can live with me,” Parker whispered, brushing my hair with his hand soothingly.
I choked out another sob, living with Parker in his male-dominated household seemed like a worse option than living with my Amish aunt. All I wanted was for my mother to be well and bustling around like she used to before alcohol dominated her life.
“I can’t live with you, Parker,” I shrieked. “I’m an orphan, I have no conscious family besides my Amish aunt,”
Parker stilled. “You know those cops said something about you moving to live with your Dad,”
Parker walked to the other side of the room and retrieved a sheet of paper that had been sitting on my mother’s dresser. He handed it to me, although my head was spinning and my vision was blurring, I could still make out the general gist.
“Wait- I don’t have a father. This has to be some kind of mistake,” I said, feeling my head grow lighter by the minute.
“The police said he would be sending a car tomorrow to pick you up,” Parker said softly. “He must’ve been the first person they called,”
I nodded numbly; it was easy to accept things when your foundation had been rocked to its core.
“Where does he live?” I queried.
“About an hour drive from here,” Parker analysed the sheet of paper. “Nicholas and Theodore Trent,”
“Who the hell is Theodore?” I snapped once more.
Parker glanced up at me with a sympathetic look in his deep, brown eyes. He flicked a strand of hair out of his face as if what he wanted to say next caused him deep pain. “It seems that your mother has kept a little bit more from you than we’d like to think,”