Seafoam //Completed//

Chapter 8

For weeks, Lulu and Zac worked together in quiet detachment. The library had become neutral meeting ground in which they could work together but never really engaging other than to jot down the answers the other gave on the assignments. Once a week, they would sit down for a couple of hours and discuss whatever book they were reading. She wrote down his simple answers on paper, while he recorded hers on his voice recorder.

Every Monday their grades would come back average, with comments from Miss Denisov that suggested they try harder. Lulu didn't know what the woman wanted. They both read the books assigned and answered the questions to the best of their knowledge but she was never satisfied. Neither of them ever discussed it though, they just accepted their grades and moved onto the next one.

Zac's resentment was clear in the cold politeness of his words, but despite his forced civility, Lulu preferred his company to the chaos at home. She was becoming accustomed to his quiet voice; and though it was curt, it was a soothing rhythm compared to what she suffered through at home. It was as if their mutual dislike for each other had melted the barrier of discomfort dividing them and now they had one thing in common. He was nothing now but an unseeing mannequin with few words; an empty vessel she didn't have to impress or even tolerate. The anger she felt after their strange argument remained, but it leveled her. It allowed her to focus on their work and the wild emotions his presence once evoked were quelled by it.

At home, her father's binge drinking was becoming more than a weekend hobby. Every night he would get home and instead of hungering for what Lulu had cooked that evening, he would fill his belly with whatever bottle he got his chubby hands on.

Just as the alcohol kicked in, so did his rage. He would storm around the house screaming her mother's name, accusing her of abandoning him and leaving him alone.

"How dare you leave me with the brat? How could you just let yourself go without thinking about me?" he cried.

It drove Lulu to sneak out almost every day after he fell asleep, tiring himself out by his cries and sedating himself with the liquor.

The streets were usually empty when she made the short trip to the beach on her bike. The lighthouse beckoned to her but she remained on the shore, watching the waves crash and the seagulls fly overhead.

Her thoughts were inundated with images of her mother, sick and crying on her bed while her father hovered over her as if she were a child. But she wasn't his child, Lulu was.

If he had ever been right about anything, it was that the one at fault for everything was her mother. When she got sick everything went to hell and Lulu was left to grow up alone. At first, everything had been so scary. The diagnosis had come but the doctors had promised them the world. A new treatment had been developed and they were running trials.

"Mrs. Santiago is the perfect candidate," they'd said. "We're so hopeful."

And so had she been. Until she lost her hope.

Never had she seen a person unravel so quickly. In the span of a few months, the cancer had decimated her mother's already thin body. The treatment in turn had caused her to lose all her hair and her frail body was sick every day. Eventually, she had to be confined to her bed, weak and pathetic.

She had become an ugly creature and Lulu couldn't bear to look at her. She would cry herself to sleep, praying that the mom she once had would come back. It wasn't her. It wasn't Mommy, who would reach out and hold Lulu's hand when they were watching a sad movie together, or the same Mommy who would hum and dance while she cleaned the house, always making Lulu giggle. This imposter was not the happiness Lulu once knew, and that was what had torn her little thirteen year old heart to pieces.