Dead Like Me

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"Frank?"

I could hear her voice coming through my bedroom door. I hadn't been sleeping with my door closed for very long. I was still afraid of the dark. I would lay awake all night thinking that every groan or creak in the house meant that someone was coming to kill me. I couldn't watch scary movies, or even think about scary things. So I slept with my door open.

But around the same time I started smoking, I decided that I was too cool to sleep with my door open. I could now say that I was a man.

"You awake, sweetie?" She cracked the door open and peeked in. I think she knew it. I mean, she was my mother for God' sake. They always have some sort of "women's intuition" or some shit, don't they? They know instinctively when something is wrong.

She thought something was wrong. She tried to ask me what it was sometimes. She'd sit down with me when I came home from school, or wait up for me to get home from work. She tried to get it out of me. But I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what she wanted me to tell her.

Instead of answering her, I just grunted and rolled over so I was facing away from her. I wanted her to leave. She was interrupting my sleep.

But she didn't. She walked over and sat on the edge of my bed, her hand moving up to run through my hair in that oh-so-motherly fashion. I decided it was best to get this over with, so I turned back to her.

"What's up mom?" I said rubbing my eyes like I had just woken up.

She continued running her hand through my hair as she smiled down at me. I wondered if she could see the bags under my eyes, or smell the stale cigarette smoke in my hair. But there wasn't really much to see in the dim light trying to get through the black sheets I had hanging over my windows.

"Are you planning on getting up today?"

Fuck. Here it comes.

"Because it's been such a long time since we did anything together, just you and me..."

I sighed loudly. Spending the say with my mother was not exactly my idea of a day off.

"Mom, I'd love to, but I don't have time. I promised Gerard I'd-" That was it. I'd said the magic word.

"Gerard? Of course. Heaven forbid you keep Gerard waiting."

I rolled my eyes and sat up. "Mom, he's my best friend."

"Frank, he is not your friend. I don't like that boy one bit. He's bad news is what he is. I'm telling you. He's only going to bring you down."

I rolled away from her and pulled the blanket over my head. "No mom, he's not."

She pulled the blanket back down.

"Yes, Frank, he is. I can see it in you. I don't think he's a good influence."

"Well mom, it's too bad that you don't run my life. I'm sure one day I'll look back and curse myself for being so stupid, but right now I'm fine where I am." I pulled the blanket back over my head, signalling that I was done talking about this.

She sighed that tired, sad motherly sigh of hers and left me room, closing the door behind her.

It was just like the world revovled around him. I knew it. He knew it. I was sure that everybody knew it. He was the embodiment of everything I wanted to be. But more than that. He was slowly becoming everything that I wanted to possess. The more I was around him, the more I wanted to own every part of him. In the way my mother always thought I'd own girls.

I didn't know why exactly. The way he walked. The way he talked. The way he didn't wash his hair for weeks at a time. The way he wore black like it was the only colour that existed. For him, it was.

She saw the change in me because I had changed. I guess it was as obvious as I was evasive about it. I hadn't changed. I was just growing up. I was evolving into a new and improved me. A better me. Because of him. The best me I had ever been.

Never mind my new-found destructive tendencies.

Three years straight. It wasn't any world record or anything. Sort of a personal best. I went from 17 years of trodding the narrow road to 3 years straight of excess. Smoking, drinking. They were no longer weekend things for me. It would have been daily if I could get it. But I was only 20, and not yet legal. I had to depend on Gerard to bootleg for me. I didn't mind. It gave me a reason to call him every day, to see if he was going to buy me smokes and booze.

He'd pull up into my driveway and honk. I never had to tell him to stay outside. He never asked to come in.

My mom would watch me pull on my worn converse runners and black hoodie. She knew better than to ask me when I'd be back. If I came back, it wouldn't be until much, much later. And odds were I'd probably be wasted out of my mind. She'd grown sick of seeing me like that.

Maybe she hoped that if she didn't see it, it wasn't really happening.

But it was. I had turned into a walking, talking train wreck. I just didn't know I'd crashed.

It didn't matter. I liked it. No. I loved it.

Every morning I woke up with a hangover was the result of the best night of my life, regardless of whether or not I could remember what that night had consisted of.

I sighed loudly to myself. So much for sleeping in.

I rolled out of bed and grabbed a shirt, pulling it over my head. I found my black pants in a crumpled heap on my floor, and pulled them on too. Wallet. Check. Hoodie. Check. Remaining cigarettes. Check. Socks. Check. Cellphone. Check.

I grabbed a granola bar off the counter and left to meet Gerard at the convenience store on the corner.