" How can I live in the moment

When my thoughts never feel like my own and

Don't know how to admit that I'm broke "

- I can't breathe, Bea Miller

☀

tassel

MOM AND I WAKE UP at a sudden crashing sound ringing through the apartment. My body, drowsy with sleep, abruptly gets up and sits on the bed. Mom on the other hand dashes to the living room. 

"Vincent!" she shouts. She sounds afraid. I rub my eyes and run over to her.

When I see the sight in front, I'm fully awake at once. The base of the centre table lies lopsidedly on the floor. Half of its glass top lies in million shatters while the other half moons on the ground. Dad stands beside the mess, looking at with disbelief.

"How did this happen?" Mom asks. Her tone, although quiet, is very demanding. 

Dad stares at the entire scene and then opens his mouth to speak. "I don't know, I slept on the sofa last night -"

"Why did you sleep on the sofa?" Mom asks with detectable rising anger.

"I just fell asleep here." he answers, his voice squeaky. "I woke up and was about to go to the bathroom, but...but then my knee accidentally hit the table and it fell."

"What in the hell, Vincent!" Mom says, walking towards the shards. Dad holds her back before she cuts herself on them.

I understand why she's so upset; the table was a gift from her parents. It was a souvenir they got from Cambodia; a small table with its base made of a tree root and the top of sepia glass. They gave it to her because she loves decorating our house with antiques. Mom told me that it was also the first thing her parents gifted her after her wedding.

"I'm sorry, Myra," Dad apologizes. 

She glares at him. "It's okay, it's okay," she says, restlessly. "You're okay, right?"

She pushes me back slightly. "Make sure to not hurt yourself there." 

I nod and sit on one of the dining table chairs.

Dad nods. "I'm absolutely fine. I'm so sorry, Myra. I really had no intention to do this. I'm very sorry."

Mom continues to fret. Her hands are all over the place. "It's okay, it's okay. Just get the dust pan," she orders. Dad runs over to get it along with the sweeper.

While I sit there wordlessly, Mom and Dad clean the entire thing. I'm relieved they're co-operating with each other instead of arguing. After all the pieces have been gathered, they throw it off into the bin. They pick the slab of glass still intact and take it out to the balcony.After they come back, Dad picks the base of the table and turns it over, making it upright.

Both of them sigh. Mom looks at me. "Get ready for school. I'll go make breakfast."

Dad apologizes to her again, and she keeps throwing out not okay okays. He follows her into the kitchen. I decide to head to my room and get some clothes out for school.

I take my time to wear my clothes. The sudden shock of the entire incident hadn't let my systems start functioning like regular. This little moment of calmness I spend in my room will hopefully make them go once more.

Mom calls me to tell that breakfast is ready. Sitting on the chair I had already pulled out, I dig into my baked beans. The strong taste of ketchup covers my mouth. I wince. It's too strong. But if I bring it up to my mother now, she is going to pour ketchup all over me.

Mom and Dad join the table. Dad apologizes softly once more, while she just mouths Eat as intimidatingly as she can. When I go to the kitchen to keep my empty plate, I hear him trying to bring her mood back to normal. Before I can tell him to stop doing it, Mom snaps.

"Oh for God's sake, Vincent! Stop apologizing! It's not going to fix that table!" she shouts. Dad doesn't respond. "Neither is it going to fix those loans you're having a hard time to repay! So just don't dare apologize!"

Dad stutters a bit until he finally speaks up. "I told you last night, Myra. I'm paying them back slowly. I'll get over with them by April next year."

"You said the same thing last year and the year before that! Vincent, you don't even have that low of a salary. Where does all the money go?"

"I don't know!" Dad shouts back. "I always transfer all of the money to your account and then pay the monthly requirement from there."

"Then why aren't the loans going off?" Mom asks, sounding defeated but not quite.

"It's a lot, Myra. This home and our previous one. The old one is almost cleared. It's just the new one that remains majorly," Dad answers, lowering his voice.

Mom then starts raving about how this house is not even that big, but Dad claps back by saying the architects of our complex are rather famous, so the price was larger than an average home of this size. This sort of a thing continues for a long while, with my mother saying he's somehow wasting money and my father saying that she's crazy to say something like that. Mom's literally about to throw hands at him, until I finally jump between those two. Her hand lightly grazes my cheek.

"Move away, Tassel, move away! I'm going to figure out what he's doing with all the money! I'll find out on which woman he's spending it on!"

She pulls my shirt and attempts to push me to the side. I'm strong enough to keep my hold. "Stop, Mom! He literally said the loan's high so it's going to take some time to repay. He's even apologizing for telling such things last year. So please calm down and go sit there," I say, trying to take her towards the sofa.

"No Tassel, this bastard here needs to tell me how many times he's lied to me until now!" she pounces. I grab her wrists to stop her from breaking anything. 

"This is why I don't want to live here, goddammit. This woman keeps bastardizing me and my family as if she's been brought up by a bunch of saints!" Dad screams from behind me. I hear his footsteps pound towards the door. I go after him, leaving my hold on Mom as softly as I can. "That is because your entire family is literally made out of bastards except for your mother!" Mom screams. Her eyes look bloody.

Dad's about to open the door when I yell at him. "Stop, Dad!" I order, pushing his hand away from the lock.

"No, you stop, Tassel! You need to stop interfering in our matters!" he shouts at me. I stare at him, narrowing my eyes. "Yes, Tassel, you need to stop interfering in between us!" Mom agrees from the other side.

"Your matters are my matters so I'm not going to stop," I say calmly. I take Dad's hand and pull him to the place where Mom stands.

"You both are going to talk it out right now. Get over with it within half an hour or I'm going to be late for school," I order them, forcing them onto the sofa. They scowl, sitting on opposite ends. They don't speak. "Talk," I scold. They still don't. "You both are going to talk to each other! Don't leave this unresolved like last night because I don't want to bear all of this again tonight!" I shout, whining like a kid, making them exchange glances. Since they don't look too violent now, I decide to leave them alone and go to my room.

While I'm packing my bag, I overhear them. They still seem mad, but their conversation at least includes something logical instead of random insults. After twenty-three minutes of speculative talking, they finally come to an agreement that they're going to record all they're money usage. Any bills given in gas stations, stores or ATMs need to be kept as proof. If Dad wants money, the transaction can only take place after Mom gives him the permission to take it from her account. 

A short breathy laugh unknowingly escapes my lips. Are they making up or making a deal?

When things seem to have settled down, I go to the living room.

"It's time to go, Dad," I say, flinging my bag across my shoulder. He nods an okay, looking at the floor. He doesn't spare Mom a glance when he gets up and takes the car keys from the drawer. Within a few minutes, we're inside our car.

During the drive, Dad keeps mumbling things to himself and shaking his head. He does that whenever they have a fight. It's like he lets out all the things he wasn't able to at that time. All the anger and the pent up snark remarks. "She's so sick," he growls loudly, halfway through.

I stay quiet.

"I'm going to end up killing her one day, I really will!" he screams. He presses his foot harder on the accelerator. The car picks up speed, suddenly growing into something fatal. He zooms past the red traffic lights. All of a sudden, I feel like I'm in a roller coaster at the middle of the road. We're approaching a dead end, and we need to turn right from here, but Dad keeps going forward. The speed increases to almost the maximum.

"Dad, stop!" I shout, gripping his hand. He suddenly pushes the brakes, and the car comes to a screeching halt. The force throws both of us forward. My head hits the backrest when I bounce back. Luckily, it doesn't hurt much. As I sit there gasping, my eyes slowly well up with tears. 

"I always do," he said, his eyes open wide. 

The car stays like that on the road for a while. Fortunately, this alley isn't crowded, so there isn't anyone to hurry us. When we calm down, Dad starts the car.

"I'm sorry," he says, right before we reach school. My tears fall, but I fight it to the bare minimum because I don't need my friends seeing me with red and puffy eyes.

"Bye," he wishes me as I get out, forcing a smile. His eyes glimmer.

I sniff in the last bit of tears left. "Bye," I say, forcing a smile too. 

Like father, like daughter.

|| ~~~~~ ||

Kim and I have been spending a lot less time lately, but it only makes me realize that we'd never spent much time together alone in the first place. It was always Arohi who brought us together. If she didn't come to school for a day, Kim would disappear, who knows, maybe with Lilly. Arohi was the glue of our group and she was so natural that I'd never even captured that we weren't even an actual group. It was mainly Arohi and me with Kim tagging along every time Arohi saw her.

It's partly the reason why I don't feel mad at Kim anymore. It's not like I decided to let our relationship go; it's just that we never had a huge one to begin with. Nothing between us has changed except for the existence of Arohi in Portmouth. Nothing at all.

Arashi and I sit under the mango tree. Even with no projects, we like hanging out here together. It's been long since I'd made a new friend whom I spend so much time with. I know lots of people in this school, but I never really stayed with anyone but Arohi. I'm glad that Arashi popped out of nowhere in my life to somewhat compensate for it. I don't feel so horrible to use him to get out of this loneliness, because if it's helping both of us be friends, I don't want to feel so bad about it. 

The clouds move, and the sunlight grazes the tip of my shoes. The dull grey looks bright now.

Arashi doesn't talk much; he sits and listens while I blabber sometimes useful and sometimes useless stuff like an idiot. And it feels good. Sometimes, we're both quiet. No words spoken, no looks exchanged. Just time passed under the tree during afternoons. And that feels good too. I like his quiet. It's contagious, making me relatively calmer too.

I stare at the sky, imagining the entire galaxy beyond it. I see the stars and the Earth, as if I'm not here anymore. I see myself explode into pieces in vacuum.

"Do you know what happens to water in space?" I ask Arashi.

"It floats?" he questions back.

I shake my head. "I meant outside a spaceship. It boils off completely because the temperature lowers significantly with the pressure. It's cool, right. Like whenever someone thinks about water in space they always imagine bubbles floating. But no, it's actually disintegrating outside."

Arashi looks at me and then upwards. "That's interesting."

"It is," I agree.

He smiles softly. His continues to look at the sky even as his smile fades. The brightness makes him squint a little, forming small lines on his monolid. It's kind of cute; his eyes look like tiny creases on a newborn's hands.

"Hey, Tas," someone calls out from behind. It's Denna. I greet her back. She kneels down carefully and smiles at me but on suddenly noticing Arashi, she gets up. "I'm sorry, I think I'll come later," she says, trying to slip away. She's going to misunderstand if I tell her it's okay to leave, so I pull the rim of her dress towards me. It's quite a lot of force, so she ends up tripping and stumbling backwards. Luckily, the tree prevents her from falling flat on her butt.

I laugh. "I'm sorry."

She rolls her eyes and kneels down in front of me again, giving me a poker face. She straightens her dress. "I know you very well aren't, Tas."

I smirk. "So this is Arashi," I say, showing him. He tells her hi, to which she greets back, rather unwieldy.

I've always felt that Denna was uncomfortable around boys. She denied it every time I asked her about it. I'm absolutely myself, she'd say. Of course you are. Forever the bashful and awkward girl, I'd reply, impersonating my words. Around girls, Denna was anything but.

But still, she looks much better now. Although she was a bit awkward with Arashi, she looked at him while talking. I guess spending two and a half years in high school loosened her up a bit. For all I know, she could even be in a relationship.

The three of us talk. It's mainly me and Denna catching up on our years through Freshman and Sophomore Year and Arashi answering questions about his previous school whenever one of us ask him any. 

Few minutes later, she stands up. "I need to see my English teacher. Let's talk again sometime."

I nod. "Have lunch with us tomorrow," I offer.

She shows consideration. "I'll see. You guys," she says looking at Arashi, "should come to our building too. The reception is so pretty. It's full of Art exhibits that the students made throughout the years."

"Sounds nice," I smile. Arashi agrees.

Denna leaves, and the quiet atmosphere around the tree returns. I can tell Arashi's talked enough for today. He's already closing his eyes. It makes me laugh.

In the past week, I've reconsidered my feelings about her. I've noticed that she's become much more easy-going, and in all honesty, I don't think I dislike her anymore. I'm not sure if I like her yet, but her presence doesn't annoy me as much it did before. 

It almost feels like we've gone back to our middle school years, at the time when we really liked being together. When we were beginning to know each other, but before we knew each other. I hope we can laugh together like that again someday. I won't forget what happened, but I'll try not to meddle it with what's happening. This time, I hope neither of us fuck up.