I was eight when my mom got clean. The needle stopped entering her arm, and the pills stopped clattering into her palm. That should've been a good thing. That's what humans always say. That's the way they quantify improvement, through the absence of suffering, not the presence of peace. But it wasn't peace. It was just a trade.
She stopped worshiping the drugs and started worshiping a man named Jace. He had a few tattoos, a permanently cracked phone screen, and the personality of an open wound. Mom looked at him like he was salvation, the kind of guy who arrived at the gates of hell and managed to sell fire to the devil. He was good at talking, too good, and even better at losing money.
Gambling. That was his poison. Online casinos, rigged slot machines, and back-alley card games with men who smelled like rot and vodka. I watched him throw away hundreds in a single night and come back smiling like he just conquered the world. My mom didn't care. She cooked him a steak when we barely had cereal. Gave him money from her old savings account, kissed him like he'd cured her disease, and laughed like everything was perfect.
I hated him. I hated her for letting it happen. But mostly, I hated the species that gave birth to people like them. I hated humans.
They were parasites, a word I learned in third grade and immediately fell in love with. Jace was the perfect example. He didn't work. He didn't clean. He didn't do anything except sit on our stained couch and bark orders. He'd scream at the TV during games, slam the remote against the floor when his team lost, and throw his beer cans and bottles into the corner like the world owed him a maid. Sometimes he'd flirt with the neighbor, the one with the broken screen door and the cigarettes. Mom didn't care about that either. She said he was a "free spirit."
Free spirit. Right. More like a disease in jeans.
Actually, I think a disease would have more personality. At least they contribute something to the world.
We were supposed to visit my grandparents soon. They lived in Georgia, some empty highway town full of trees and people with opinions about God. I didn't care about them much either. I didn't care about anyone. But they had a backyard and a dog that didn't bark. It was tolerable. And tolerable was the closest thing to peace I'd ever found.
Jace didn't like that I was quiet. He took it personally, as if my silence was an insult he couldn't stand not to answer. "You ever gonna say something?" he'd ask, halfway through his third beer, legs spread wide like a king on a trash throne. "You some kinda mute? Jesus, you're like a damn ghost."
I didn't respond. I never did. I just watched him, eyes blank, hoping one day he'd disappear into himself and never come back. Maybe drink himself to death. That was never answered.
"You know, I think your mom broke herself trying to raise you. Look at you. Don't even talk, don't smile, just sit there like a fucking statue. Waste of oxygen. You'll have to plant some trees to replace all the air you waste."
She never defended me. Not once. She'd just shake her head like it was a shame and pat his leg like she agreed. Like I was some broken part of her past that couldn't be fixed and wasn't worth trying to understand.
At school, it wasn't much better. The counselors tried, at first. They always do. They called me into their offices with smiles so forced it made my skin crawl. "How are things at home?" they'd ask. "Do you want to talk about anything?"
I didn't answer. Just stared. Sometimes at the wall. Sometimes, at the crooked cross one of them had hanging above her desk, never at them. It makes them giddy to think you view them as some superior being. That's just their ego speaking.
Eventually, they gave up. Humans always do. When something can't be fixed, they walk away. That's what makes them weak. And believe me, they were human.
The students were worse. An elementary school is basically a zoo with pencils. A bunch of immature idiots clawing for attention. They saw my silence as a challenge. A dare. "Hey, creepy kid, you ever blink?" "You write poems or some emo shit?" "What happens if I push you, huh?"
One of them did. Some scrawny kid with braces and too much energy. He shoved me into a desk one morning just before math class. "Maybe then he'll talk," he said, grinning like he invented fire.
I didn't talk. I didn't scream. I didn't cry. But I remember the way the metal felt against my shoulder. I remember the heat in my chest, the burning as I raised my arm and clenched my fist.
I remember wanting to break him.
But I didn't. Because violence is human. Lashing out like a wounded animal is what they do. I'm not like them. I'd rather rot in silence than become something I hate.
I walk the halls like a ghost, not because I'm broken, but because I'm above them. They see the world as something to conquer or consume. I see it for what it is: a rotting playground where everyone's pretending they're not scared, where everyone destroys one another because it makes them feel better.
Jace started leaving pamphlets around the house. "Therapy for Teens," "Understanding Your Child," "Finding His Voice." I saw one in the bathroom once, next to a mildew-covered toothbrush and a half-empty bottle of cologne that smelled like ash. I'll give you three guesses who those belonged to.
"You know, there's a kid in your class who talks to trees and still manages to make friends," Jace said one night, flipping through channels. "You? You don't even try."
I looked at him. Not because I cared. But because I wanted him to know I was listening.
"You're gonna end up nothing. You know that, right? People like you don't get jobs. Don't get girlfriends. Don't go anywhere. Just end up on the news for something weird. Or dead in a ditch. I think you'd like the ditch, would fit that ugly mug of yours."
Mom just kept washing the dishes, not even flinching at his words. She kept humming, scrubbing, and ignoring every vulgar insult thrown at me. As if I didn't even matter.
I wonder what it's like to matter. Not in a fake way, not like how Jace mattered to my mom because he had arms to wrap around her and lips that said pretty lies. I mean matter, like being the reason something changes.
Not yet. But maybe someday. Maybe when I can stop staring at the human filth that lines the world.
I just counted the days until I leave for Georgia. Not because I care about my grandparents, or the countryside, or any of the other nonsense people pretend is comforting. But because it'll be quieter. And quiet is the only thing that doesn't disappoint me.
Sometimes, I dream about a world without people. Just empty streets and quiet wind. No more footsteps. No more breathy laughs. No more voices telling me what I'm not.
I think I'd like that world. A lot.
But, I was stuck with asshole prime for the time being.
One night, Jace got drunk and punched a hole through the bathroom door because the toilet wouldn't flush right. He said it was my fault, something about me being "useless" and "probably clogging it with whatever freak shit I'm into." I wasn't even home when it happened. Didn't matter. He liked having someone to blame, and I was easier than facing a mirror.
Mom bought a new door the next day. Didn't question it. Just sanded the splinters off his knuckles and kissed him like he was a war hero instead of a man who couldn't hold down a job. I asked her once, just once, why she put up with him. She said, "It's hard to find someone who stays." Like staying was a virtue, even if the person staying was rotting you from the inside out.
He started calling me "Thing." As in, "Hey, thing, bring me a beer," or "Thing, stop breathing so loud." Said it was funny. Said it fit. I stopped correcting him. Better to be a thing than a human like him.
At school, they stopped pretending to care. I was marked as the weird one, the quiet kid, the one teachers watched out of the corner of their eye like a bomb they weren't sure would tick or explode. One girl, Mia, I think, asked me if I'd ever killed a cat. Said it with a smile, like it was a joke. I didn't answer. That scared her more than if I'd said yes.
The desk I sat in during math had gum under it, initials carved into the wood, and a screw missing from the leg. It wobbled whenever I shifted, like it wanted to collapse and take me with it. Sometimes I wish it would.
The only time anyone touched me was to shove, trip, or throw something. Crumpled paper. Half-eaten snacks. One kid chucked a pencil once, and it hit my ear so hard it left a bright red line. They laughed. I didn't.
I just blinked and stared at them until they got uncomfortable and turned away. Unsurprisingly, that took about thirty seconds.
Jace told me I needed thicker skin. That the world chews up soft people and spits them out in gutters. Then he went back to screaming at the TV because his team missed a touchdown.
I think if the world were a body, Jace would be the infection no one noticed until it was too late.
And the school? That's just the fever.