Southern Constellations

Sleep didn't come easily. I don't know why I expected it to, it never did. At least, not anymore. It was some sick combination of terror and regret that worked better than caffeine ever could, a knot in my stomach and a pounding in my head that kept my bleary eyes open wide. Maybe it was a gift, an involuntary way to evade the nightmares that would certainly arrive as soon as I slipped unconscious. Yet even that couldn't stop me from reliving the past few months over and over in my head. Rethinking every mistake I'd made, wishing to god that it could've turned out differently.

But it didn't, and at no time did that become clearer to me than when I was waiting for sleep to overtake me. I'd suddenly become hyper-aware of the softness of the fancy blankets twisted around me as I tried to get comfortable, of the silence of the house without a television blasting into all hours of the night, of the breathable air that didn't stink of smoke and booze and whatever else my dad used to use to destroy himself.

And I knew that I should've liked that, should've liked that I was warm and without a headache and could actually breathe but fuck if I wasn't still cold and suffocating because this wasn't home and it never would be.

I wanted to go back. I could lie to myself about how much I loved it here all that I wanted during the day, but at night all bets were off. Here in the dark, I could convince myself that just outside my door was the living room with that shitty little couch filled with cigarette singes and broken springs that I should've hated because I had almost as many burns to match with it but hell she'd sat in it and it was all that I'd had left of her and now it was gone and I was already forgetting her face and if I forgot her completely then it was like she'd never existed and then all that was good in me would never have existed too.

Mom.

I bit the inside of my cheek, so hard that I tasted blood. I hated thinking about her, hated thinking that she was gone and never coming back. So did my dad, which was why he'd trashed all of her stuff when we'd moved. But not that couch. No, that fucking couch cost him big bucks, and hell if he was leaving it behind. Bet he'd wished he could've left me behind too.

It had been almost a year since the night that she'd left. Well, not physically left; that happened later. But a year since the night that she was finally serious about dumping my dad's sorry ass. And, as it turned out, dumping mine too. I guess I was just too much like him for comfort.

I should've known something had happened. I should've known something was going on. I should've known that opening my huge fucking mouth would be nothing but a mistake.

I'd heard their yelling from my room. Nothing was different, nothing was new. It was all just background noise to me at that point. I was hunched over a textbook-- science, I remembered it still. I wished I didn't, but I don't think I could forget even if I tried. Something about nuclear fusion, fission, some explosion, some splitting of atoms. If only I'd known that my own nuclear family was about to explode and obliterate everything. Then...then I could've...could've what? There was nothing I could've done. It would've happened anyways, the days were numbered since the start.

But it could've happened later. We could've had more time. It was selfish and awful, but I wish that I hadn't done what I did that night. I wish I would've stayed in my room and pretended that I didn't know what was happening, played dumb like I always did.

I'd never been good at keeping my mouth shut, had I?

No matter where I went, it was always my fault for screwing things up. A nice family living together? Nope, pack up, it's over, time to go, say goodbye to everything you care about. A friends (and more-than-friends) that actually liked me? Haha, just kidding, like you'd ever deserve that.

I just couldn't stop myself from thinking that if I'd stayed quiet, if I'd accepted how things were and hadn't been such a drama queen, maybe I wouldn't have had to leave. Maybe I still could've been happy.

I knew I couldn't change what had already happened, but this time around, things would be different. I could figure out a life here, I knew I could. Be friends with Alex, somehow get Jenna off of my back, stay in touch with Vic. It could work. It would work.

Now all I had to do was zip my lips and plaster on a smile.