Wreck Of The Day

DISCLAIMER: C'mon, if I really owned Green Day do you think I would be here writing about them? The answer is...NO!

A/N: This chapter is just background on the main female character, and there's no mention of Green Day. Yet. Give it time.

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My mother always insisted that it was not Eve who was responsible for the downfall of humankind but, instead, Adam. And given the bible stories that were shoved down our throats in Sunday school, growing up, it seemed a little hard to believe my mother's claims. I just chucked it up to her being bitter over the fact that my father was more than absent from all our lives and wasn't even a sliver of a husband or father to any of us.

Because I was naive.

Yes, my father was never around and I hated him for it, but that didn't mean I didn't love him and that I didn't cling to the hope that he'd come home.

Well, there was this one time after a huge fight between my parents that my father came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed. I remember how he smiled sadly down at me.

But the more I look back on his expression, it was more guilt that was in his face then sadness. Guilty for what he was going to do, but wasn't planning on telling anyone about.

He brushed my hair out of my nine-year-old eyes, told me he loved me, and that he would never leave me.

And I believed him.

I mean, what else was I gonna do? I was nine and he was my Daddy.

So, he kissed me goodnight, got up and shut my door as he left my room, and for the first time in a while, I felt this breath of fresh air.

Hope that things were gonna get better.

But then my father was nowhere to be found the next day, or the day after, or the dat after that.

Days became weeks, weeks became months, and before I knew it, four years had passed. I was now a teenager, living with my mother who was struggling to make ends and with my older and younger brothers.

Slowly but surely, I became bitter like my mother. And for good reason, as you could guess. The one man who was supposed to be there for paternal guidance in my life, the second party responsible for my existence, had left us.

I always felt horrible for my younger brother. David. He was practically a baby when my father up and left in the middle of the night. And he was growing up without him at all.

Of course, my father reappeared occasionally until I was 18 and graduating from high school. He even showed up at the ceremony, even though my mother was telling me not to get my hopes up, despite the fact that he'd attended my older brother, Paul's graduation the year before.

And, again, I felt as if things could change. That my father was going to be a new man.

He and my mother were already separated by this point, although, not divorced. To this day, they're still technically married but they haven't lived together in twenty years.

But that's another story for another time.

Life was going good, for once. I was still living at home after graduation, working at the local bowling lanes, in the kitchen, preparing food for the bowlers.

It wasn't much of a job, but it paid what few bills I had, such as helping my mother with the cost of food and rent. And she didn't even charge me much for rent. Just fifty bucks a month out of my check.

She wanted me to save so that when I was out on my own, I didn't have to struggle.

And I didn't.

Sure, I didn't go on to college like most kids I went to high school with, but that was because I wasn't much of a student and I didn't want to waste away aiming for another piece of paper that might not mean shit in the future.

Plus, I wasn't even sure what I wanted to do with my life.

And, to tell you the truth, I'm still not sure.

So, I floated around from profession to profession; working stints as a waitress, barmaid, in a Deli...you know, I'm starting to see a pattern with food here.

But then I got work at this local radio station, just answering phones, but it was still exciting. Especially when musicians came to the studios for interviews with the DJs.

I worked my way up at the station, not because of an educational background I didn't have, but because of my drive to better myself. To not struggle like my mother did.

I would not be my mother, as much as I love her...I don't ever want her life.

Now, despite having moved my way up to the position of an assistant to the station head by the time I was 25, I felt that this wasn't where I wanted to be forever. So, before I began to waste away, I made the sudden decision to fulfill a dream of mine.

Move to California.

Packing up all my belongings in the back of my car, clearing out my bank account and kissing my mother good-bye, I set off for a leisurely, week-long drive across the country from Buffalo, New York to San Francisco, California.

It was the start of a new life and I had no idea what life held for me.

This was four years ago.

And looking back, maybe it wasn't the best move ever on my part.