Bleeding Heart

"Mariella! Suppers ready!" My mother called from downstairs. I've been cleaning my room for the last 20 minutes. IT wasn't bad, just a lot of clothes everywhere.

"Alright!" I yelled out my door. I turned around to turn off my radio and my lights. I walked downstairs to to the smell of garlic bread and pasta. "Again?" We've been having this for the past three days. If you tell me, it's kind of...yeah we need a new change.

"I'm sorry, dear, but this is all we have for right now." My mother said, pushing out a chair for me.

"At least it's food."

"Tomorrow I can buy something else. After work." She said as she put pasta on Dante's plate, followed by mine, then hers. We grabbed our own bread.

"Alright. Oh, I forgot. I'm working tomorrow after school." I said, after I took a bite.

"Finish eating before you speak and no you are not. You've worked almost all last week, and weekend. School is tough enough. Your grades are falling and they need to be improved. We've had this talk before, Mari. You want to be a doctor, and you need to go to college." Actually, I didn't want to be a doctor. I wanted to do something that involved music. Being a doctor was my mothers dream, and she ended up having my brother which caused her dream to die.

What made it even harder was his father didn't want anything to do with him, so my grandparents helped my mother raise him. Then there was when my mom found my father, who was a fire fighter who liked to sleep around a lot. That whore. He left us when I was eight. My mom explained to me, but a different story. I knew why, because there was one time mom needed surgery and Dante and I were at home with dad.

He had brought this girl home and slept with her in my parents bed. My mom never knew. I walked in on them, I was scared and wanted my dad. So I went to his room. When I got there, I saw my dad on top of her. I screamed and my father looked at me like I was an alien. He yelled at me to get out, so I ran to Dante's room and he said I could sleep with him. He wanted to know what happened but I wouldn't tell him.

Dante never really liked my father, and I could see why.

I was always a daddy's girl. My mother knew it too. She's sorry we didn't have a father figure around, and I can tell she feels lonely. It is hard, raising two kids on your own. Especially if we cause a lot of trouble.

Although, I'm mostly the trouble. With all those preps in school, and Dominic. Ha, there was this one time when the miss-know-it-all came up to me and started to make fun of me when I was thirteen and Dominic and I were already arguing. I think it was about...which band is better. Or was it chips...

Oh well, anyways, Marissa came up to me and said she hated how I dressed and that it was bad for a girl to dress like the way I dressed. She then started on how my hands were always dirty, that I was an outcast and I didn't belong. She said how ugly I was, too.

And then Dominic looked at her and said " And you are pretty, for a gorilla."I looked at him with wide eyes.

"What?" Marissa said, glaring.

"I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public." I said, and she glared."Glaring makes you ugly, you know."

"Bite me." She said. I laughed at her, and Dominic smirked.

"With pleasure." And he started to walk towards her and she put her hands up in disgust.

"Uhh, eww." She said. You know how those popular preppy girls would say ewwww? Yeah, said it that way, in a very girly/disturbed voice. I started to laugh as I watched Dominic chase her down the hall and her screaming "Leave me alone you..you...FREAK!" I saw Dominic laugh and stop. I couldn't help myself from laughing either.

That day still cracks me up, but still confuses me. Why on earth would he ever stick up for me?

You see where I'm confused. Yeah, men. Can't live with 'em, and you can't live without 'em.

"Mari?" My mother took me out of my thoughts, it was then did I realize I had the fork in the same spot for at least 5 minutes. I laughed at myself.

"Yes, mother?"

"Are you okay?" She asked, concerned.

"What she means is "Have you lost it?" I snorted as my brother.

"Dante, you can't lose what you don't have." I stuck out my tongue at him, as he put food into his mouth. "Mom, I need to work. We need the money, I need the money. Remember, I'm going to try to go to Mississippi?" she looked down.

"I don't see whats so important. It's just a state."

"I think it's beautiful there." I said with a shrug. she sighed.

"You'll be to far away from me, Mariella." She pouted, I giggled. The pout looks funny on my mother.

"Ahh, mom, I'll keep in touch. You know I will." I Got up from the table and cleared my plate. "Plus, it should be an awesome experience. Nothing ever really happens in my life thats great."

(Oh If I only knew then....on what was going to happen...)