The Queerest [🗸]

dancing is thoroughly impossible

i was so excited to write riya asdjfhj

***

I always seem to hear them yelling.

The screams, the sobs, the head-shakes, the downturned lips, the pure upset dripping from their voices. They play over in my mind like a fucking hurricane.

Like it still happens every day.

Despite the fact that Dad is long gone. 

Not here. Pulled the greatest disappearing act of all time. Didn't say a fucking goodbye to the sixteen year old he left behind, just filed for those divorce papers and subsequently ditched.

Two years ago. 

Shaking my head, I hold my coffee mug between my hands, hoping I can gain some semblance of warmth. Two fucking years ago, and I still can't get over it. Still wonder why I wasn't enough to keep two people—that seemed to be in love—together.

"Good morning, Riya." Mom's voice is simple, clipped. 

She's making herself a cup of coffee, dress shirt and pants illuminated by the kitchen lights. Turning around, she offers me a tight grin, setting her mug on the table as she takes a seat across from me.

My mom is fucking beautiful. The type of beauty that's there and present and careful. And yet, so delicately sad. 

Grandpa says I got her looks. Borrowed her face. Didn't know that genetic shit came with the depression, too.

We eat in silence.

In some cases, shit might be awkward as fuck, what with both of us sipping out of our plain mugs, Mom typing at her laptop every so often, and me stirring my coffee because I might just be bored as shit.

This is one of those cases where I'm used to being awkward as shit. 

Still awkward as fuck, though.

I guess it's always been us, though. Us versus the world. Me versus the world. Mom prefers to stay aligned with society. Which is probably why it's painfully fucking difficult for us to really connect.