Five O' Clock Shadow

I walked into my house to find a note in my mothers scrawny script. "Out till late, left money to order pizza. Love you, Mom"

Karma would get me back for this bit of luck I seemed to be getting on the worst dayof my entire life. I plopped down on the couch, face down and began thinking of the days events. Travis, Mylo, Lucy, and it was only Monday. I had an urge to call Lucy, simply out of habit but I figured it would be inappropriate. I decided to let myself suffer in silence.

"What are you doing home early?" a tired voice asked me.

"I had a bad day," I answered, my voice muffled as I spoke each word clearly.

"Okay, Mr. Negative," my brother echoed my words from the weekend witha condescending tone.

I picked up my head and glared at him from behind the couch.

"What?"

"Are you going out tonight?" I asked, the words that I knew would make him uncomfortable.

He cracked open a beer and took a sip before saying, "Uhm, maybe."

"I'll be sure to lock the door."

"What's your problem Luke?"

"My problem?!" I shouted, "What's your problem?! When are you going to do something with your life? The only thing you do is go out and get high on who knows what, and then inhabit mom's house. You're 27 years old, you need to get over yourself and get help and apologize to mom for making her think she raised such a no good son."

He gulped, and the face that he put on almost made me feel sorry for him. Almost.

"It's been years. You need to move on," I said with a lighter tone.

He ignored me and went downstairs, probably to sleep until he went out tonight. When he left the room I moped some more. There's Good ol' Luke for ya', always hurting the people he cares about. All day long I debated on going down stairs to apologize, but I couldn't get myself to do it. I had too much pride, and I was too depressed to move.

That night before I went to bed I made sure to leave the door unlocked. When I woke up at six I was surprised that I'd slept through the whole night.

"Dereck?" I asked, looking outside and then running down to his room. He wasn't there, and some of his drawers were emptied of his clothes. I started to panic. "Dereck?!" I called, even though I knew the effort was useless.

I went into my mom's room, to find her dressed and awake. I was surprised. "Uh, mom?" I asked. We didn't talk about Dereck a lot. "I can't find Dereck."

"He left a note," she answered in a foggy voice. She turned to hand me a piece of paper and I saw she had been crying a little.

It said, "I'm sorry, I'll try to be a good son. You'll hear from me soon. Love, Dereck."

"He just..left?"

"I guess," she answered, straightening her skirt. "You should get to school. I'm making chicken for dinner. You have to stay in tonight," and with that she went into the bathroom. Everything was perfectly normal.

When I walked out of my house, I was grateful for the outside world. My home had turned so empty, it was only me and my mother. I was scared and sorry for her. I made a promise to myself that I would never let her down, that I would always make her proud no matter what. She would be the one person I would never hurt. She had dealt with too much sorrow for such a good woman in her life.

I thought about this on the drive to school, which I imagined was very fast because of all the rage inside me.

I parked my car fast and turned it off as someone opened the passenger door and slid in with me. "Wanna bite?" Mylo asked, holding out a chalupa from taco bell.