Explanation part 1: Bro I've been working on this since September and I've barely written five parts. This is the first chapter and I'm still!! Working!! On!! This!!!! But I don't think I'll ever finish it but I don't want to leave it in the dark forever because I really like this so far. If a few more months go by and I haven't gotten far, I'll call it quits and maybe return after a while. But here's the first chapter I guess.
Explanation part 2: my favorite movie is Donnie Darko. It's all over the internet (YouTube too probably) and it's absolutely amazing. I recommend it. I love it so much I tried to loosely base this off of that with a handful of changes.
Anyways I hope you like this as much as I do. There will be more in the future whether I finish it or not.

"They're better now, right?" My mom asks. She's practically dragging me out of the pharmacy, down the cracked concrete stairs with a white paper bag tucked under her arm. Like she's afraid the strangers passing by will see through the bag and conclude her son is a lunatic.

I just shrug. She doesn't like that. Her grip on my arm tightens and I can feel her nails digging into my skin through my shirt. I should've worn a sweatshirt. It's almost January and it's cold.

"I dunno. It's been a week." I can see the car. It's all the way across the parking lot. Small, silver, and brand new.

"That's not what I like to hear."

"It's the truth. Those were trial pills." I emphasize 'trial' and she emphasizes she doesn't like that. I don't like her coat. It's black and furry and sheds. People always ask if we have a dog. It's awkward to tell them we've never had pets.

It's from Balenciaga. She dropped five thousand dollars to have it before she even thought about writing a book. I hate her coat.

Mom gives me the bag and digs around for the keys in her purse swinging on her wrist. It's a black Galleria bag by Prada. She spent almost three thousand dollars on it after the book became a best seller and Dad left. Her justification was that she deserved it, but I'm not too sure about that. I don't argue with her most of the time.

The pills rattle in the bottle with each step I take. Quetiapine. Seroquel. Whatever they're called. Sixty of them, one before bed every single night. Side effects include drowsiness, slight weight gain, dry mouth. I left my good water bottle in the car. I haven't gained any weight yet. I'm always a little tired.

The tan leather seats freak me out but there's no escape. It's always scary to think any wrong move could stain. I'm not allowed to eat in the car and neither are my siblings, but my older brother does when he's the one behind the wheel. I'm still not allowed to.

"I'm going to drop you off at home," she says and slides into the drivers seat, "your brother should be back by now."

"Okay." I unscrew they cap to my water bottle and chug half of it. It feels like a little stream trickling through Death Valley.

"I left pasta in the refrigerator and a jar of pesto. Eat with him, please. I don't want him skipping meals again."

"Okay."

"I'll be back at nine, your sister will be back at seven. Her friend's older sister is taking her back home after dance class, Sarah. You met her a while ago."

Sarah can drive. She works at the art supply store three streets over, and has her own car. She likes Bon Jovi, the Jonas Brothers, and smoothies. She doesn't mind my company. "I have the brain capacity to remember people, Mom."

She purses her lips and tightens her grip on the steering wheel. "Well, you sure don't remember where you go at night, do you?"

"Maybe I sleepwalk some times. I don't choose—"

"Okay, Dallon. Let's keep it quiet until we get home."

The car engine rumbles silently during the rest of the drive through downtown. There aren't too many people out and about, I'm thankful we live in a quiet suburban town. We could live in Los Angeles or New York, but I like Darlington. I like Idaho. If I sleepwalk, I just end up in the trees. Not a freeway. Not like I can pick and choose.

She drops me off at home without a goodbye. She just parks the car in the driveway, keeps the key in the ignition, and waits for me to get out. She's never home for long. I thought she would want to go inside and make sure my brother hadn't demolished half the house, but she doesn't care. Half a million dollars is nothing to her now. House repairs are nothing but a chip in her marble shoulder.

Mom pulls out to the curb and watches me open the front door and doesn't leave until it's shut. Even then, I watch through the window as she waits for a minute and then drives off. She doesn't trust me.

My brother is staring over the banister of the stairs when I glance up after I lock the door, resting his chin on the polished wood railing. He hasn't completely changed out of his work clothes yet.

He waves. "Hey, motherfucker."

"Hey, motherbitch."

"I thought you weren't coming back until later." He says.

We look almost nothing alike. He's barely ten months older than I am, and though I'm completely sure we come from the same mother, we almost look like strangers. His nose is longer and isn't as sharp, our hair is almost the same shade of brown but his is easier to style and is a bit shorter than mine. And he has natural highlights and slightly thicker hair. When he smiles, it's unintentionally snide and his canine teeth are like fangs. Girls like him better.

The only genuine similarity we share is the color of our eyes. Bright blue with a twinge of green. That's it.

"Therapy was rescheduled. Thursday at two." I tell him.

"Why?"

"She wants to wait until these kick in." I hold up the bag and he nods. "I thought mom told you."

"Mom hates Jake. Jake is a disappointment. Jake should've gone straight to college instead of taking a gap year." He mimics her lips with his hand and raises his voice high to mock her further. He should be in his first year of college. Instead, he works at a restaurant called "Culinary Dropout". He had just celebrated his first year of working there with a mental breakdown and a slice of cake from the chefs.

I see his black backpack hanging off his chair in the dining room. It's a straight shot from the front door to the back door, through one large hallway that branches off into every other room in the house.

His backpack is unzipped. Folders dangle out, overflowing with papers. His laptop isn't there, neither is his notebook. I think he's been home for a while. I wonder if he ate lunch without me. I wonder if he thought about lunch at all.

"How was work?" I'm still standing at the door. I kick off my shoes and nudge them into the corner near the doorstop.

"The only thing that changes is the Chef's special. We did get our first shipment of yellow spoons this morning. Like, for the ice cream sundae desserts." He takes it slow down the stairs as he recollects his short shift. Very slow steps. Loud thuds as he drops himself down each step.

"Yellow spoons don't go with the green cups."

"We have blue cups now."

"Did you eat lunch?"

"I ate a shit ton of snacks at work," he hops to the tile floor from the bottom stair, "did you eat lunch?"

I shake my head. "Mom wanted me to have lunch with you. She doesn't like the meal-skipping."

He crosses his arms over his black work shirt.  He's in pajama pants and fuzzy socks. "I don't fucking skip meals. God knows why mom has to act like Hayley is the only normal one in the family. She thought chocolate milk came from brown cows until I had to break the news to her last week. She's in the fifth grade."

Mom doesn't spend two hundred dollars per hour for him to see a therapist. The only issue he has is snacking too much before lunch and dinner and the inability to keep a stable romantic relationship. Maybe Hayley doesn't have emotional problems or commitment issues, but you can tell there isn't a single braincell on duty some days.

"Mom said she wants us to have lunch together."

"We don't have to do whatever she says all the time. She isn't even home right now." He purses his lips. I'm pretty sure there are cameras around the house to prove to the cops I just walk out on my own, that nobody kidnaps me and my disappearance should be taken very lightly if it's been a few days. I can't see them, but I know they're there.

Anyways, those cameras would record me heating up pasta on my own. I'm not allowed to use the stove, not because something is wrong with me, but because I can't cook. I can't cook to save my life.

"I can't cook."

"Pour some cereal." He says. There's a stain on his shirt. A pink stain on black fabric. I hope it's something strawberry flavored. I bet I could bribe him into bringing some of it home tomorrow. His shift is only three hours long, but he might pick up an extra hour or two.

"We don't have any milk."

"Dry cereal."

"Do I have to tell you directly that I want to sit down and have lunch with you? I want to sit down and have lunch with you."

Jake clenches his jaw. He sighs but gives in and stalks off down the hall into the kitchen. I follow a couple paces behind him.

I stand in the doorframe of the hall and watch him fling open the refrigerator doors. There's a magnetic whiteboard stuck to the right door. In Mom's handwriting is, "Where's Dallon?", in ink from a black marker balancing on the top of the board.

Jake shuts the fridge dejectedly when he does realize we are in fact out of milk. "One of the cooks taught me how to make the famous Culinary Dropout house pasta sauce the other day. Grab a box of elbow noodles, would you?" He waves his hand in the general direction of the cabinets near me. He nudges open a drawer with his foot and pulls out a strainer.

"What's in it?" I ask.

"I was just going to use canned tomato sauce to start with, but she adds garlic, onions, chili flakes, a bunch of shit. Let me see the pasta box."

"Is it spicy? You're the only person that likes spicy food."

"It's not, okay? Pasta, please, I need to look at the box."

"Mom told me there's pasta in the fridge—"

"Would you just get me the fucking box, Dallon?!" He shouts and it echoes through the vacant house. And he feels bad after he realizes what he said. "Sorry. Didn't mean to raise my voice."

I toss him a blue box of elbow macaroni. He doesn't say a word until a pot is filled with water and the burner is on.

"Applications are expensive." He mutters. It's so quiet, I almost don't hear it.

I watch him pick at the seal of the box. "Fee waivers exist."

"I need to sweet-talk someone in person to get those. Fees aren't waived based on grades or financial stability unless you're ridiculously broke and miserable." He tears the box open and dumps the noodles into the water. He covers the lid but doesn't turn back around to lean on the counter. He just stands at the stove with his hand latched on the handle.

"You could plead as miserable."

"In this house? With this name? Totally. That's how these things work. In the eyes of FAFSA, money is happiness."

Mom wouldn't help him pay for college. I think I've figured out why, but I'm too worried to bring it up. I think he's the only kid of the three of us that was a product of her past marriage. It would explain why we all look different, and why he's the only one that looks ridiculously similar to our dad. His dad. I think that's why Hayley has bleach blonde hair.

"I have twenty bucks you can use," I offer, "I'm not gonna be spending it any time soon."

"Nah. Keep it. If I'm applying to the main three, it'll be a total of two hundred and fifty bucks. I make forty bucks in tips on a good day if I fucking flirt with a few tables. Old people are so stingy."

"I can raid Hayley's piggy bank for you. I know where she keeps the key." It's in her walk-in closet, in the front left pocket of her black overalls that are hung behind the green sweatshirt Jake bought for her as a Christmas gift. That year, he got me a pill organizer and new shoes. I paid for half of a car he found for cheap out of my dead-end college fund. Mom gave him ten bucks.

"She's broke as hell too. Mom gets stingier and stingier."

"Hayley still gets report card money." I say.

He pauses. The monetary system refreshes in his mind, the one we were introduced to for a year until it was canceled as we entered our first year of high school.

Twenty for an 'A', ten for a 'B', five for a 'C'. Six courses total, straight 'A' student.

"Later," he says, "raid it later."

"I'll do it tomorrow night."

Jake nods. He lets go of the lid and buries his head in the fridge. He pulls out plastic containers and glass jars until he has everything he needs. He rummages through the pantry and sifts through the cabinets for good measure.

He lines everything up along the one good cutting board, the one nobody is allowed to use. He grabs a knife from the middle drawer of the countertop and goes to town on his ingredients while I sit and watch on a stool across the island. I wish he was allowed to cook in the kitchen more often. Whatever he makes at two in the morning is always better than whatever our mom throws together on an unnecessary ten minute time limit.

"How long do you have until applications close?" I ask. He takes a pause from chopping to frown and stare off into the distance for a minute.

"The deadlines are the first three days of January. I pay the fee when I submit the application, and I would like to apply as soon as possible." He scoops a handful of onions into a pot. "I've been planning out my essays in my head. I don't think I can be considered as a minority, but I think I can play the sympathy card."

"There's no sympathy card. Mom is loaded."

"Thank you, weirdo."

"Are you still applying to USC?"

"No," he grunts, "I did some research on the off-campus places and they're all shit. I'd probably get mugged if I walked a block. Not like I would have anything for people to mug. Maybe they'd shoot me. Hopefully."

"Did you catch up with your English class?" He enrolled in three courses at the community college. He didn't expect to be so busy or in need of money so badly. Classroom courses turned into online studies turned into occasional online lessons.

He shakes his head. He picks up the pot and sets it beside the boiling pasta. The gas ignites in blue flames. "You're on a question kick today."

"I've been answering questions all week. Do you know how exhausting it is to change the dosage on medications? I have to relay all my trauma to a bunch of new people. Tired of talking about myself." It's not even trauma, just issues. Issues with no solution, cause, or any proper diagnosis. Whatever it is, it's wrong, I guess, and I've talked about it too much.

Jake stirs a plastic ladle through the sauce. When he decides it's finished cooking, he switches off both burners and reaches for a pair of oven mitts. They're red plaid and littered with scorch marks.

He sets the strainer in the right side of the sink, then lifts the pasta pot and drains it into the strainer. He flushes it all with cold tap water, and it goes back into the pot.

"How hungry are you?" He asks. He scoops some into a bowl for himself and pauses when I don't answer. I don't know how hungry I am. Do I even need to eat?

"Not very hungry." I say. He dumps two spoonfuls of pasta and drizzles one scoop of the red sauce on top. It's chunky and smells like it's been burnt, but it looks edible. Not that I doubt his cooking skills. He's better in the kitchen than I am.

"Mom gave me a fat fucking lecture last night when you were hanging outside with Hayley." He huffs. His fist is clenched behind the bowl and he spins the fork through the pasta as he stares off into the distance.

"Didn't hear it. We were in the treehouse." It's strictly labeled as Hayley's, but she knows Jake and I have the short end of the stick, so it's our treehouse. She's spoiled rotten, but at least she recognizes it. "We heard vague yelling."

He rolls his eyes and his thin lips curl into a sneer. "Wants me to fuck off and start my own family and get a better job. Like I'm not freshly eighteen."

I don't understand why she hasn't kicked him to the curb yet. On the other hand, I don't know why Jake hasn't run off yet. He did it when we were nine, but he came back a day later and vowed he wouldn't do it again. I would runaway if I could. I wouldn't look back. Now I just wonder what he saw that made him come back. "Then do it."

"This isn't a fanfiction, Dallon. I can't just pick somebody up and move in with them after a month."

"That's what Mom did."

"I'm not gonna --" Jake breaks into a grin but suppresses the laugh. "Damn. That was mean."

It's the truth. The only good thing to come out of that failed marriage was Jake. A few would also include a few chapters of her book that were about him, but I believe the whole novel is a disgrace to the human race. I don't understand why so many people loved it. "A little bit."

"A little bit. But, like, I'm really bad with relationships and shit and I have to pay for everything from here on out, keep in mind I'm
broke as hell, and—"

"You should date Sarah."

"Like she even knows my name." He says. Once it processes, his eyes blow to the size of dinner plates. "Not that I like her or anything. Because I don't."

"You like Sarah."

"I've met her once."

"You've met her way more than once. That wasn't a definitive 'no'. You like Sarah."

"I do not. I think I just need to sort out my own life before I start dating again."

I'm not a matchmaker by any means. I barely know Sarah. Some days, I wonder if I know Jake. If he's leaving for college soon, why wouldn't he try to see if it would work? If it doesn't, he can fly off across the country. If it does, it's set.

Anyways, I know he'll start seeing someone else again soon. Girls drool over him.

He rambles on about romance for a while, maybe half an hour. I just listen so I don't have to tell him about my day or any of the appointments I sat through. He goes on and on about his eleven ex-girlfriends and that one guy from a few months ago. That one guy that was an experiment but stayed around for quite a while.

It's four o'clock when the doorbell rings. It rings three times, and then someone knocks five times. Jake looks up from his phone, I look up from the fucking essay I was given along with the bottle of Quetiapine.

"Expecting anyone?" He asks. They knock five times again.

I shake my head. He eyes the hallway suspiciously, like a crazed murderer is about to run into the kitchen wielding a butcher knife. "Are you?"

I follow behind him as he heads to the front door. He leans over the back of the decorative couch in the front room and slides a metal baseball bat behind his back. His blue eyes are wide and filled with fear until he checks the peephole.

He tosses the bat to the rug. "Fuck. It's just Hayley."

Jake flings the door open and points an accusatory finger at our little sister. She's wearing a silver leotard and pale pink slippers. "You scared the shit out of us. You aren't supposed to be home until seven."

"Our teacher puked," she says, nonchalant, "so they sent us home. We think she's pregnant but she won't admit it."

"Maybe she has discreet alcohol poisoning. Did you walk all the way back or what? Did the aliens pick you up?" Jake snickers. He goes to crack another joke about her sparkly outfit, until Sarah stomps up from the driveway.

His cheeks flush. She has a new pair of black boots that bring her up a couple more inches. She's dyed her hair pitch black again, and ruined another perfectly good pair of light blue jeans. Now she has a tattoo on the inside of her arm, and deep red lipstick.

"Sorry," she says, "someone left her bag on the front seat." She passes Hayley a pink drawstring bag, packed with a change of clothes and probably a pantry of snacks.

Jake's grip tightens on the door. His mouth moves but not a word comes out. Not that he likes her or anything.

I point to her arm. "You got a tattoo."

She nods and turns her arm so we can see it. She has an intricate drawing of a boat, a little wooden rowboat, floating on calm waters. It's shaded in green from a lime light across the ink bay. A green light hanging on the edge of a dock like a ghost. It's still covered with plastic film.

"I like it." I tell her. "Was there a reason? Or did you just like the look of it?"

She glances over at Jake, who's still frozen. "The Great Gatsby. My favorite book. My favorite... symbol, I guess."

"I-I've never read it," my brother sputters, "explain it to me?"

Hayley and I lock eyes. She purses her lips and shakes her head. She knows. She'll be teasing him about it later.

"I mean, you kinda need to read the book to understand it completely. It's supposed to represent the American Dream and money, either that or his crazy love for this chick that has commitment issues—"

"Hey, Jake has commitment issues too!" I say. I don't mean to. It just slips out like everything seems to nowadays. His face turns bright red but he's still frozen.

His lips twitch into a miserable smile. "Thank you, Dallon."

Hayley pulls apart the opening to her bag and lifts out her black sneakers. She's itching to change into pajamas. "He also still sleeps with a teddy bear. It's named Mister Fluffles. He's had it since he was six years old."

Sarah bites her lip. She lets her arm fall back to her side. "Okay... I'd better get going. See you guys later."

I wave as she climbs back into her car and backs out of the driveway quickly. I don't know if she looks back in the side mirrors. It feels like she does.

Jake yanks both of us into the house. He slams the door shut with his foot and grips my bicep so hard I'm sure it'll bruise. He's holding on to Hayley's leotard strap so the elementary school doesn't call to complain. That would be a weird conversation to explain what happened.

"Just to be clear, I don't like Sarah," he hisses, "and Mister Fluffles is a secret. I cannot believe you guys would betray me like this."

Hayley giggles into her hand. She doesn't stop when Jake leans down close and snaps at her again. She does laugh louder. "Jake and Sarah, sitting in a tree—"

"K-I-S-S-I-N-G," I pick it up for her when he slaps his hand over her mouth, "first comes love, then comes marriage—"

"I am going to shove my hand down your throat, rip out your vocal cords, and serve them to you for dinner."

"She uses Tom Ford lipstick in this color called 'Mon Chéri'." Hayley says. She has an innocent smile. "I asked her when we were driving home."

"Okay? Do you want me to take you to get some or...?" Jake lets go of us. He takes a few steps back and crosses his arms over his chest.

"No, I just thought you'd like to practice kissing on your hand. The lipstick would make it a little more realistic."