haven't been able to think of anything i wanna write about lately... bleh :P here's a drabble i wrote like, 4-5 months ago?? i don't remember when, i just know it's more recent cuz im actually proud of it
Click. “Hey Adam?" A voice blared from the receiver. “It’s your mother. Can you call me? It’s about your dad.”
Adam Faulkner-Stanheight let an exhausted sigh pass through his cracked lips. He leaned forward on his dingy black couch to grab a pen and a piece of paper. The envelop of an unpaid bill caught his eye, and he pulled a corner off of it. CALL MOM - he scribbled in barely-legible red writing. He’d tape it to a cupboard or the wall later, and ignore it like all the rest. He leaned back and let the couch swallow him whole again.
It was an old piece of shit he’d gotten from Scott Tibbs back in the day. It’d been sitting in his basement, unused, and in an uncharacteristically nice gesture, he offered it to Adam when he heard he was moving out. It was covered in stains but most of them were hidden by the dark color of the fabric. The soft fabric was tearing and the wooden legs were covered in scratch marks from the stray that Adam kept letting roam around his apartment. He swore he used the couch more than his own bed. When he stayed up late, barhopping by himself, he’d come home drunk and pass out on it. He ate all of his shitty TV dinners on it, got high on it, brought girls and guys home to it, read his shitty rocker magazines on it. It was more of a home to him than his actual apartment.
Adam readjusted, turning so he could throw his feet up. He leaned forward and haphazardly fiddled with his box of cigarettes until he’d pulled them close enough to grab one. His lighter was always in the pocket of whatever pants he was wearing. He held the cig up to his lips, sparking the end and taking a drag. His head flopped onto the arm of the couch and he let his smoky breath fill up his apartment. His window was open, so what?
Ring, ring. He rolled his eyes as the phone blared it’s obnoxious ringtone in his ears. It sent a wave of displeasure through his head as he took another drag. He’d just let the machine get it.
Click. “Adam? Sorry, Mom again. Please call me when you can. Ok?” And the machine hung up again.
Adam wasn’t close with his family at all. He was born in the midst of a divorce, and his parents decided to bite the bullet and give him a good life together. Famous last words. His parents were constantly fighting with each other over stupid shit. It was obvious they couldn’t stand each other. At first, Adam would hide away in his room, playing with his toys, trying to keep himself occupied to drown out the fighting. As he got older, he got curious. He’d sit on the stairs and peep through the bars, watching his parents yell at and berate each other. He’d seen it get physical so many times it stopped bothering him.
When they weren’t together, his parents tried to win him over. His father would take him to do “manly things”. Hunting, fishing, you know the works. When Adam showed clear disinterest, his father would interrogate him. “Is there something wrong with you, boy?” He’d ask, and Adam would look at him with teary eyes, shaking his head back and forth. His father didn’t lay off about it for years. His mother was more of the guilty-trippy type. She knew Adam was struggling with his parents - she would insist that he should tell her how he’s feeling, but she blew up at him every time he tried. “Imagine how I feel! I’ve had to put up with him for so long, you don’t even understand what it means to hurt.”
Adam stopped talking to his parents as often when he got into high school. He’d stay out later and later and eventually stopped coming home for days at a time. He’d pack his stuff into a suitcase and stay with Scott’s family. It’s not like it mattered; his parents barely acknowledge him. When he was home, he spent all of his time in his room, absorbed in his music and magazines. He would make his own dinner and take care of himself like he was an adult because God knows his parents couldn’t come together for 5 minutes to make him something to eat.
Adam found himself dabbling more in the arts as he got older, too. Music was his first love, but photography was his truest. He liked to express himself through the photos he took. It gave him something of a purpose. He saved up his money and got himself a pretty expensive camera for his 16th birthday. He brought it with him everywhere.
With the rest of the money he’d saved, he moved out at 18 and never looked back. Sure, his apartment was a piece of shit in a sketchy neighborhood, but his parents were hours away. He could blare his music and smoke inside and nobody cared because everyone else did the same thing.
Adam took another drag from his cigarette before forcing himself to stand up. It’d been 4 years since he moved out, and 4 years since his parents finalized their divorce. Somehow, his parents had learned to get along afterwards. Convenient. His dad was sick with some type of cancer, and he didn’t care to find out. His mother was always calling, begging him to come home, to come help her. He ignored most of her calls.
His kitchen was colder than the rest of the house. The black and white checkered tiles were littered with food crumbs and drink stains. Adam was pretty sure there was mold starting to grow from behind his fridge or something because the walls were splattered with weird looking shapes and colors. He padded over to the phone and put a cautious hand on it. He held his cigarette in between his lips as his eyes darted from sticky note to sticky note. Some of them were shopping lists, some of them were reminders to call the doctor or to reach out to an old high school buddy, but most of them read CALL MOM in bold scribbles.
Adam sighed, putting his cig out on one of the ashtrays he kept laying around the apartment. Ironically, this one was a going away gift from his mother. He thought he’d kept his smoking habits hidden away from her but he came home reeking of all sorts of and stuff. She knew all too well. It was purple; his favorite color.
It wasn’t until his mother picked up that Adam realized he was running on autopilot. His hands shook pathetically as he held the receiver to his face.
“Hey, Mom,” he mumbled. His voice was so low his words slurred together.
“It’s about Dad, I know. I heard.”
“Your father passed away a few minutes ago.”
Suddenly, the world fell silent. The faint dripping of Adam’s broken faucet, the cars driving by, crickets peeping from somewhere in the walls - there was nothing.
“It’s really unfortunate you couldn’t have been here, you know…” Her voice began to mesh into the background noise. Adam wished he could’ve felt something. There was a lingering sense of sadness inside of him, but not the genuine kind. It was the kind of sadness you feel when you know you should be sad. Or when someone tells you that you should be sad. Deep inside, he wanted to say thank GOD he was gone. A weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. He didn’t have a father to disappoint by being himself anymore. He wasn’t happy he was dead, but he certainly was relieved.
Adam stayed silent as his mother droned on and on about how she was so upset he wasn’t there. She needed Adam. She wanted him to come home. He wasn’t sure if it was the sudden news of his father’s death or him getting tired of his mother’s selfishness, but he couldn’t hold his tongue.
“Yeah, what about him? Sure he wouldn’t have wanted me there. Maybe call me when it’s not all about you.” He snapped and slammed the receiver down. The silence in his apartment was damning. Adam’s elbows pressed into the cold surface of his counter as he hung his head into them. His fingers intertwined with his messy, dark brown hair. His face felt hot with embarrassment. He never liked lashing out.
His socked feet dragged him away from the phone as it started to ring again. The machine picked up and it sounded like his mother was going to say something - her voice cracked and then she paused.
“Maybe you’re right, Adam.” And it clicked again.
Adam grabbed a beer from his fridge before trudging back to his couch. He threw himself onto the dilapidated hunk of junk and cracked it open. The first sip was always his favorite. He threw his feet up onto his shitty coffee table, in between his ashtray and magazines and a half-smoked bowl and old beer cans and small piles of unpaid bills. He leaned his head into the soft fabric. That damn couch had given him more love than his parents ever had. He was pretty sure he was going to mourn that thing more than his own dad.
