Although I can't explain all that I want to do...

When I wake, I see the tweets I shouldn’t have sent the night before; they make me look weak, but I’m not, or at least I don’t want anyone to think of me as such. I’ll see the photos eventually—"I don’t remember taking these.” I’ll see the notes eventually—I mostly remember scrivening those. One in particular I’ll abridge yet elaborate, for it’s actual manner of phrase is overly caliginous. To quote myself, imbibed and not wholly of sound mind; "If not, it'll die in her iPhone with her, and when'd she start speaking in the third person?"

• 
  

“What are you thinking about?” I’m asked by the girl with sparkling eyes that knows mostly that I probably won't say...

The dead strand of lights out back and incurable tweak in my neck, the light gone from just one string of bulbs, illuminated in her eyes, (I envy this,) escalating tension in my back and shoulders. 

I’m staring off, thinking of only that, tossing back my flask, wondering why she asked and why I’d end up saying, “wouldn’t you like to know?"

No one here knows me for more than a familiar face, an embarrassing mess most nights. I’m being quiet, I have so much to say, but no one would understand. No one here knows me. 

• 
  

I drive to work and think about the ways in which I’m ruining my own mood—for over-analyzing every conversation, look, gesture, that was most likely innocent and misunderstood. I constantly preach not to idle on self consciousness, ("fuck what they think! you’re perfect, and if they can’t see that…)—my duplicity clearly wears me out. 

At work they call me sunshine, say good morning. “Good mawnin’,” I smile, illuminating the illusion that I actually am spreading rays of warm light in the cold atmosphere. I think I make them happy. Crouched down to fill the coffee carafe to the 12 line at the slow, trickling water cooler, they say, "thanks, Cass." I consume about half the pot on my own, usually make a second half-batch if I don’t pick up a diet Coke or Monster on my lunch run. 

Attempting to be eternal sunshine exhausts me, and I can’t do it on these cloudy mornings, let alone smolder all night. Consequently, I’m not the cheery little lass I once was. My flame's burning out, I need to be where it’s warm, or with someone who warms me. I think people try, but it’s not enough. I’m scared I’ll suck the life from them. I don’t want good company if I’ll destroy it. 

I keep my phone on airplane mode—every notification I see makes me feel so sad, even if it’s the sweetest text message in the world or a "like" on a photo from a sincere soul.

• 
  

The note ends, "I'm sobbing in someone's room (who doesn't know me,) listening to some song (everyone knows,) when my girls ask if I'm okay, and what do I say? Yep. I'm good. Typical. I'm the driver." (Do they know I was crying? Did that even happen?) I don't remember crying, and I sure as hell hope no one else does. Reflection only amuses me anymore when it's horizontal, and I haven’t seen it that way for weeks.

December Never Felt So Wrong

I died listening to George Winston driving around on a rainy Tuesday night. The piano keys struck, "ba da da ba, ba da da ba," staccato, yet fluidly, and I knew the artist so fluently articulating "Carol of the Bells" immediately. Not suspecting that this would play on Bing Crosby holiday Pandora, I didn't see the light come toward me, because of the headlamps and street lamps reflecting the glittery rain turned sequins on my windshield. 
When it's dark, the total absence of light, it's equivalent to being blind, but when light is so powerful that you can't see anything, is that being blind too? Or is it not that we cannot see; perhaps we are not meant to see what is so light, or so dark, so we wander the muddled mess of the two on this spherical mass in space.

It's rotating, like the vinyl on the record player I sought out for my best friend for Christmas. When the shop owner tested out the purchase for me, he picked up leaning in a stack on the floor against a mini fridge, an album for a band I'd never heard of, "Loverboy," saying, "you probably never heard of Loverboy," which I hadn't, but I did catch a glimpse of the album behind it.

Autumn, by George Winston, in all its 12-inches of phonographic glory, encased in the worn and granulated cover--amber waves of grain sheltered under a seemingly endless blue sky. I asked the shop owner, a retiree who only accepted cash and cut me a sweet deal on the modern Victrola, "Do you think we can listen to Winston instead?" 

"Oh, you're not going to get the same sound out of it, but sure."

We chatted about Winston visiting at the end of the month a nearby town  in Pennsylvania, and I told him that, "my favorite album by him is the Vince Guaraldi cover album. 'Winter' is good, too."

"Yeah, 'December' tends to be one of his more popular records," I wanted to kick myself just as he said it; I knew it wasn't 'Winter' right after the sentence slipped out. Such a pompous early 20-something hipster in a used appliance shop in Levittown, in all her cultured baccalaureate glory, kicked down by the Veteran retiree more knowledgeable about an artist typically lauded by new-age, jazzy cats. I own "December" on cassette. How stupid of me.

The light in front of my eyes dims, and I keep driving on the first Tuesday of December, "ding, dong, ding, dong, hark blah blah bells," I'm singing. I said I died, but just as dark is the absence of light, isn't death the absence of life? I stopped living right then, to the stroke of the keys playing a song so familiar that in absolute light could shatter me to shards of piano keys and strings, like a baby grand dropped 22 stories. 

Angel

Originally titled "A Fourth C," Written April, 2014, the second of three creative non-fiction essays with a focus on research and interviews. Presented at Shippensburg University's Annual Student Research Conference. This should probably not be posted, since the only people to ever read it were my adoring and kind class mates who have no idea who I really am, but fuck it. It's all lies anyway.

Mom had 4 babies all without an epidural; me first, my 2 brothers, and a little sister. Natural pain of childbirth was nothing compared to the hollow hypodermic needle piercing her skin, entering her midline spine and opioids or local anesthetics injected, possibly causing side effects. She took no risks and on pain.  

Cassandra, the name chosen for me before I ever existed when my mom was still naturally blonde, graces my family with more irony than all Greek tragedies combined. Conceived out of wedlock to religious grandparents, I brought my parents together in marriage. In Greek mythology, Cassandra is gifted with prophecy, mostly concerning negative outcomes but she is cursed, never to be believed. 

Coady, the eldest of the boys, has an extra letter—my dad said because mom was drugged up when the doctors burst in and told her to sign the birth certificate. She’ll say it was because she wanted it to be different. I call him Broady, brother-Coady.

Coady’s two years and two months younger than I, a taller, thinner, more reserved and less open-mined version of myself. He’s equally intelligent and motivated, though he in the form of filming, editing and riding in street BMX edits, in which he and his friends do “sick” tricks. 

We’re similarly cleanly and equally hard-working, unlike our spoiled little brother. The babe at 15, a blonde and more baby-faced spitting image of Coady, Curtis is my personality twin. I call him Brutus, brother-Curtis. He calls me Sass, sister-Cass. He’s into drama, not just theater, but in age. Kid has swagger, I’ll give him that, I borrow his new made-to-look-old sweaters when he turns his back, and I stumble upon his cigarettes. 

“What the hell is this?” I ask, noticing the crushed Newport 100s in the small—open—zipper pouch on the outside of his backpack, mortified. Do not be like me, do not make these choices, do not disappoint.

He makes an awkward, caught grimace, but my dad stands behind my back, unaware of what’s out of his view and in front of my face. 

“Knock that shit off, got it?”

“Okay,” through teeth, rolling his eyes not in attitude toward me, but at himself for letting that slip.

Curtis is a good kid, but he’s confused. My parent’s divorce certainly complicates things. He’s gay, he says, but not directly to me—to social media. He’s growing up unsupervised, living with my dad who works constantly. I pray for him, not that he won’t mess up, but that he’ll make it through the rough few years ahead of him and live the life he deserves.

And unlike all three of us is my sister. I’ve never called her that before; we’ve never met, but I’ve always known. Angel, she does not fit in with the 3 “C”s: Cassandra, Coady, Curtis. Angel hovers above alphabetically, symbolically, holy. Born without life, born without sin, never a complaining breath slipped her lips as so often they do mine. 

Coady and I were young, and Curtis had not come along yet. For several months after a blood drenched urine cup test, my mom was home for “bed rest” and under the impression things were fine. Fine—such a loaded word—“of superior or best quality; choice, excellent or admirable; very thin or slender; in an excellent manner; very well.” 

She folded the family’s clothes as she sat on the couch when she felt it again, this time 6 months in, the blood blending in with the velvet burgundy sofa. I remember that couch like a nostalgic spoil, for it took so much poison. 

I named Dixie, the feline who pissed and shit on those cushions at any opportunity, and who lost control of her bladder due to a thyroid condition, banished to the basement in my college years. A bitter Cass brought Dixie to her lonely townhouse at school sophomore year when her roommate transferred, where Dixie would moan a sorrowful, natural death on Broady’s birthday. 

I recall spewing Cocoa Puffs on that same sofa over my dad’s shoulder before I ever went to school, a vomit memory not forgotten, unlike the countless college parties that left my stomach empty and my trashcan full and reeking.  But the sofa was before; before the time Angel came and went. 

Mom and dad got our brown-haired little heads in hooded coats, arms in sleeves, no shoes though… She and dad forgot. We were dropped off at Grandmom’s, on the way to the Trenton hospital where the doctors asked, “Where’ve you been we’ve been waiting what took so long?” No emergency room wait, ultrasound, sit in chief doctor’s office. What’s going on? What is wrong? 

     A blood clot, sizable—about 4 by 6 inches—affixed to her placenta, the sack that fed my sister, tore a hole in the organ that connected her to my mother, and out leaked her sustenance, her chance at a normal life dwindled.

The ultimatum; the chief doctor shared with my mother two possible outcomes; my sister would be born “possibly, most probably deformed,” or my mom could die.

She made the decision to, as my devout grandmother so gingerly put it, abort the baby. A 6-month-old baby, barely formed, barely a girl, barely given a chance, forced into the world not alive. But the choice was not a choice. Choose to give Angel 3 more months, and innocent Coady and I might ever wait like birds longing for their momma to return, chirping in the nest for eternity. She flew back to us, leaving one egg for dead, to care for those chicks that already hatched.

My mother and father rarely agree on anything, especially now, post-divorce. Yet talking to them, they have startlingly similar feelings on one topic; jerk. 

The doctor plopped down on my mother’s hospital bed as tears leaked out of her ducts, and asked, “are you crying?” How critical, how judgmental, how insensitive? I cry for this moment more than the loss; I cry for my mom for the first time in years. 

They photographed Angel in the little hat and name bracelet my mom kept to this day. I’m curious to see the photo, and I know I could take it, braced for the image, but I’ll never ask, the curious image better left unseen. They asked my mom if she wanted a burial, and my mom declined, she only wanted Angel to be for something—medical research, anything. They couldn’t, so she was disposed of the way hospitals deal with those instances, probably the incinerator.  

“Normally, when you leave the hospital after having a baby, they wheel you out… you know, in the wheelchair? And they put your baby in the car seat. This time, when they took me out, I was left with nothing.”

November 26^th, 1996, Angel’s due date. I was 4-years-old, Coady 2. Coady and I were photographed for Christmas around that time, I see his little face, so round and hair dark, soft, long. He wears a tiny green sweater and little booties. That face stretched into the slim face he has today, spattered with patchy hair he says won’t grow into a full beard, but he says means he won’t bald.

November 24^th, 1998, C-u-r-t-i-s was born. I remember going to the hospital, spelling his name in the front seat of my dad’s old pink champagne car, passed down from his sister, with its burgundy interior that smelled of church and that plasticy fiber that in the heat seemed to roast. He’ll never be called “Calvin,” the other name my mom considered, but discarded. He’ll never be called “Curt,” a choice I wish I’d made when “Cassie” became my nickname, the identity I so strongly wish to leave in 1996.         

“I don’t think I would have had Curtis,” mom said of Angel, the bird that never flew. Her wings were clipped for C-u-r-t-i-s to soar. 

Each Christmas, my dad took us shopping for my mother, and we always picked a gift not on her list; an angel. A snow draped figurine, a beanie baby bear with wings, a crystal rearview mirror charm, a twisted metal hanging garden decoration. My dad said it faded with time, the gifts and the pain. “You know, time heals all wounds… She’s still your sister, maybe someday you’ll meet her in heaven…” He laughed, a “ha” here, nervously, doubting the depth of the words I’m not sure I buy, the words he might not even believe himself. 

Until this moment, I’ve never called her my sister. Sister. She’d be 17, a junior in high school. I’d imagine she’d be hardworking like Coady and I, the distance not there like with Curtis. I imagine her the blonde version of me, like Curtis, the blonde version of Coady. I’d imagine her name, a real name, not one based on her death, but based on the future she’d hold. It’d start with a ‘C’, like the 3 Clarhaut children that exist, that got the chance to exist.  

Paradise Holding

Propelling myself between white and yellow lines, my journey laced with the highs, then inevitable crashes, but never totaled, I still roll onward. I make it to work on-time this morning, the three cigarettes to calm my nerves on the trip-up. Light, suck, blow, ash, flick. I noticed this morning in the bath that the cut inside my mouth on my cheek, caused from chomping on 750 calories worth of chips after dinner last night, has healed almost completely. I’ve always healed fast-- my piercings and scrapes, my sprains and bruises. I don’t get sick, and when I do, my body usually relinquishes the illness in about a day. Perhaps my physical resilience makes up for what I lack mentally, emotionally: the pains of my mind hanging on like an unshakable cold, even when I’ve decided for myself that, “I’m over it.”

So I turn down the road less-traveled, always, because Frost said it makes the difference, but I’m not so sure how this road is different. I feel good (for now,) looking at the world in this new and heightened way, I actually feel, but I’m still just focusing on avoiding that cliff to my right.

The unpopular road I’m on is dark and over-grown, it’s so dangerous, really, but I don’t know how many people have really died here. I’ve heard the stories, people plummeting over the edge, but they weren’t as smart as me, as observant or self-aware, and I’ve got a better control of my vehicle, an assumption based upon the circumstances. The course I travel has a clear destination, a good time and place to rest, I just need to keep my eyes out for the signs and make sure no one notices me here. A girl like me in a place like this is a guaranteed disaster if my presence is realized. Though my speed continues to accelerate, it is still steady and reasonable, and if I keep my eyes on the road, no one will notice that I’ve strayed. I’ll end up where they are on-time despite our contradicting passages. I just need to focus.

What to make of the ones who didn’t make it? They went too far down this road, where the pavement ends and all is lost, all are lost, but I’m not worried; I’ll exit in time to get back on course. If by some chance I miss the exit, or I get too close to the cliff; if I roll into the embankment's brush or it gets so dark I can’t see an obstruction in front of me, you won’t know until it's too late.

I’m turning up the music now, speakers are blowing out. I won’t tell anyone what road I’m on, not even my best friend. “This is something I have to do for myself,” shout-sings Max Bemis competing with my back up vocals. Chain smoking between the lines, the path less clear, the boundaries blurred--I’m getting to work now. Flick. Tomorrow I’ll take this road again, and don’t follow me. I’ll find my way back on my own.

I’m not worried, but maybe if there were ever absolute truth, you’d never be reading this in the first place.

A Lone Native American Among Pilgrams

Well, Thanksgiving is here, my favorite holiday next to Leif Erikson day, and I feel obligated to speak on what I’m thankful for, mostly because I complain so God damn much and I really do have a great life. 

As is tradition, Thanksgiving has always been our holiday, held at my parents house, now my dad’s house, though my maternal grandparents still join us. Every year, we "go around" the table, per Grandmom’s sentimental demand (and to my dad and his sister’s consternation, though we participate annually—the Clarhauts are not typically the most “feeling” oriented family.) 

As I spoke to my Grandmom a few days ago about what she should bring to the gathering (I don’t know why she asks me, I’m not cooking,) she reminded me of the custom as if I've forgotten what’s happened on this holiday for the past 12 or so years they’ve been in attendance.

“I told Pop Pop to try to think of something different this year, something he doesn’t usually say.”

Which, is hilarious, since if you’ve ever met Pop Pop, you’ve probably heard the 1950-something Neshaminy H.S. football team stories, or about the electricians union, all amplified, upon each greeting. He probably has no recollection of what he’s said he’s thankful for in the years past, as he probably doesn’t even remember what exactly he said 5 minutes ago, let alone what he should be thankful for in general.

“So try to think of something new… We have so much to thank God for, and that’s why we celebrate Thanksgiving,” Grandmom continued, as if I were confused about the purpose for which we eat turkey on the last Thursday of every November for the past 22 years. Which my celebrity doppelgänger Christina Ricci put so eloquently as Wednesday in the 1993 Addams Family Values’:

“You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, you will play golf, and enjoy hot hors d'oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, 'Do not trust the Pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller.'”

So Grandmom isn’t necessarily Sarah Miller, but she might be missing the point a little, along with the rest of obese America that uses this holiday as representation of something it’s not; an excuse to pig-out and express “thanks” for things we take for granted, that we forget we received from someone else’s suffering.

Anyway, Grandmom said this same spiel last year, and I really put thought into it. I sat patiently waiting my turn to share, “I’m thankful for the fact that I was born into this time period, where women have the freedom to get a proper education, have a career and vote, without being confined to the life of a housewife, independent from men if they so choose to be.”

The response? Crickets, stares, then mocking. My dad laughed, everyone rolled their eyes, and I slunk back down in my chair, recoiling in embarrassment for an educated, well thought-out answer. I’m the only one in this little gathering this year with a degree, though my brother is enrolled in college, but I feel like maybe I should go simpler for fear of rejection. Here are some options for what I’ll say at dinner on Thursday;

• I’m thankful that I’m not pregnant (at least that I know of.)

• I’m thankful that I can date a black guy without societal oppression, regardless of judgment (a.k.a. the horrible racist labels like n*lover and snow bunny.) 

• I’m thankful that my seriously pushy, overwhelming grandparents could make it to this forced event.

• I’m thankful my parents are divorced so I only have to deal with one drunk parent on this dreadful day.

• I’m thankful that I was born into a low-income household yet still retain high-brow cultural appreciation (as I scoff, laughing, and quoting someone like Dobšinský, who I've never actually read, to my knowledge.)

• While I'm at it, I'm thankful that I'm almost $40,000 in debt to have a terrifically sexist position at an auto body shop, which I am highly over-qualified for, while working extra hours at a minimum wage job that has brought me misery for the last five God-forsaken years of my life.

These answers won't be appreciated by my family, though my brothers might get a kick out of it. I'll probably go back to a generic crowd-pleaser, like "I'm thankful for my loving family," though really, I'm more grateful for my friends, but that wouldn't appeal to anyone at the table and would offend. I'll probably just say that I'm thankful for my father, who has taught me that money isn't everything while providing for me in every aspect of life through hard work, and that nice things are a privilege to be valued, not expected. Whatever I settle upon, if it's genuine, it's bound to leave someone feeling embarrassed, and I don't mind. I'm thankful that I can share my thoughts and someone somewhere will listen.

Thank you for reading, it means more to me than you'll ever comprehend. May many blessings come your way this holiday season.


With love,

CLC

A constant struggle deciding between trendsetting and something for which the world may not be ready

You’re driving, leaving some location where you fulfilled some obligation, the only obligation you may have, when you feel the dread take over. You need gas… But no, that’s not it… You just filled your tank. You have something to do, but you always could be doing something. You could look into those appointments you need to make, or the bills you need to pay, but it seems better to drive around, even though this gas has to last you until Friday, and the smarter thing to do would be to just go home and throw in a load of laundry.

But to go home, where those responsibilities lie, the piles of clothes and paperwork, the emails requesting prompt payment for accounts overdue, the lists of tasks to complete before you can actually move the hell out of your “home," that dread takes hold tighter than the original gloom you felt leaving your obligation. You’d only end up laying in bed for the night watching Netflix, feeling sorry for yourself, wishing someone would come over and drag your ass to your desk or elsewhere, so that maybe today wouldn’t be a total waste. 

You’d get out of the car and take a walk, to clear your head, but it’s so cold; you’re always cold anymore, so cold sometimes your face feels like you got a Novocain shot right in your cheek. So you light up, let it drift, and unfortunately remember those plans you have for dinner. Maybe. You never specified if you’d make it when you replied, “I’ll let you know.” 

You should go: not spend money on food, not waste another hour driving around, fulfill the visit so you’re off the hook for another week or so. But the company is daunting and you’re disconcerted. If you just go get it over with, maybe next time won’t be so bad. But you feel it, the overwhelm, now a noun, like a wave, and you’re pulled back out to the ocean, except you can’t fight the current anymore. Now you’re exhausted, and decide “tomorrow," though you’ll be deeper at sea. Then just seems like you'll be able to fight it. The day's half over anyway, and that means it is over, if you round up.

Tomorrow, every day, it’s always tomorrow. 

"Escape," as written in Feb. 2014

The first of three creative non-fiction essays, written spring semester 2014. Presented at Shippensburg University's Annual Student Research Conference. Rejected by Brevity Magazine for online publication. Still the only thing of any worth I've ever written, and though half of my blog audience has probably read and edited this particular piece 10 times over each, it's still the only work for which I have pride. A year later, I drink my coffee black and eat dinner once a week with my mom and her husband, but I still feel the same. Enjoy.

I drank my Wawa coffee everyday over break. I’m addicted to caffeine; I need it to avoid a throbbing headache and awful attitude. Since I paid for it, I went all out; splash of non-fat French vanilla creamer, a packet of Sweet and Low, a quarter of the cup low-fat French vanilla steamer, the rest split French vanilla and regular coffee.

I work 40 hours a week at home. Money goes to car insurance and gas; heat, electric and cable/internet at school; a long list of fines for a very big mistake I cannot share here; my recreational activities—like stoges and beers and Wawa coffee.

My dad works 60 hours a week all the time. Money goes to everything. Food, water, heat, the joint rent for my brother and I, his own mortgage, even my mother; he pays it.

Homemade coffee is more my speed. Heat steams upward out of the mug and moistens my face, the strong aroma wafts up my nose, whereas store-bought cups’ lids cap in condensation and perky balm. I hate to spend money on something I can easily do myself; splash of skim, one packet of all-natural calorie-free plant derived sweetener, 8 oz. of strong, bitter coffee. When my mother left, I took the sweetener to school, and when I came home for break, I left it there.

My dad does not use sweetener, his coffee is doused with light cream. When I first got home from break, I asked him to pick up some, if he could, from the store, if he went. I forget what he said, it was something like, “get a list together for me, I’m gonna go food shopping soon.”

I never got a list together; I rarely ate at home. When my mother left, we stopped eating dinner together as often. My dad works 60 hours a week, I work 40.

My dad gets upset with me; I go out a lot after work, my nights often spent drinking at my friend’s apartment. My dad comes home after work often to an empty house, (my brothers are out, too,) his nights often spent drinking alone. When my mother left, us kids stopped sleeping home as much.

When I come home nightly before I make swift exit, the conversation is always the same.

“How was work?” I inquire, trying to stomach my nerves for the reaction I know is to come. 

Dad replies, “eh, work,” blowing out a solid, half optimistic sigh as he releases the words like a tire quickly losing air.

“I know, we’ve gotta start that business, man.” I lack consolation here, what else can I say? It irks him when I say ‘man,’ but dad doesn’t feel right anymore.

“Or, you get really rich and take care of your pops,” he retorts jokingly, using the other disliked name I call him. Regularly making light of the heavy; a quality I’ve adapted. 

I laugh, then break the news; “alright, well I’m going to Sabs’,” referring to my friend’s apartment, and almost colliding with my last syllable—“Oh, SHOCKER,” dad snarks.

I mock. “Aw, shocker.” Once again, nothing to respond. I’d say sorry, but the words don’t take form. We have trouble admitting our wrongs, though I less-so than him, another quality I’ve adapted. 

On the next hung-over mornings leaving the apartment, Wawa is my first stop, either on my rush to work, or on my rush home to grab my uniform before work. I wouldn’t have time to make coffee at the house. Plus, we don’t have any sweetener. 

Some mornings, when I was home, I’d go to get my coffee just to get out, just to smoke a cigarette.

I didn’t want to come home for break. My job is exhausting, mentally and physically, and being at home is similar. I often fled to my friend’s apartment. She didn’t have sweetener either, but Wawa is closer to her place.

I could have gone to the store and bought sweetener. I made excuses; I was too busy, it wasn’t my responsibility. I could have asked my dad again, or made a list, but I didn’t want to put more on his proverbial plate, already piled high with inadequate feelings about fatherhood and his failed marriage. 

If I spent more time with my dad, I wouldn’t feel the guilt run so deep, like a creek frozen-over, rush propelling under the translucent, placid façade of solidity. When my mother left, so did my dad’s former self, leaving the shell of a man, only a damaged, child-like soul remained.   

A few mornings, my guilt brought him coffee from Wawa. “How do you like it?” I’d ask over the phone. 

“French vanilla, three-quarters of the cup, half of the remaining space regular, the rest, cream,” he explained slowly, so I’d understand and wouldn’t mess it up.

My dad’s pride almost kept me from getting him Wawa coffee once when we went Christmas shopping together. When my mother left, all the responsibility fell on him. 

I bought the cup anyway; “I’m an adult, I understand, I’m here for you,” I often said, about more than just coffee.

Back at school, I don’t have to escape my house nightly just to retain sanity; neither do I feel guilty for abandoning my father. I have to go to school, it’s my responsibility.

I made coffee at home this morning; splash of skim, one packet of all-natural calorie-free plant derived sweetener, 8 oz. of strong, bitter coffee. Yet to my dismay, I am running very low on sweetener, with no list to write my dad, no dad here to get it, and no Wawa to run to. 

When my mother left, she left her three children and their dad to pull life back together, to take on all the responsibility at once. Thus left my ambition to grow up and here I am, without any sweetener.