If I ruled the world, I'd make it impossible for parents to separate

…No.

Actually, I'd make it impossible for them to fight. Then they wouldn't have to separate.

Then the kids who had to live with them wouldn’t have to hear them screaming at each other through the walls of their house when two polar opposites who were married in the heat of the moment are forced to live with each other.

Then everyone would be happy.

…I’d be happy, at least.

I was a mistake. I was the result of a game of truth or dare, and one-too-many shots of vodka. My mom's parents were so ashamed when they found out mom was pregnant, that they forced her to marry dad, who was blackmailed into marrying mom. Mom dropped out of school, but that was okay. She could always just live off of her parents. It’s not like they would ever disown her or anything…

(not)

At first, everything was happy. Mom and Dad went shopping for baby clothes and toys together. They didn’t particularly love each other but they didn’t particularly hate each other, either, so they just went along with it, thinking it would be a great idea to keep a child as a sixteen year couple. They really weren’t thinking.

Dad walked out when I was a little older than three months old, leaving mom at home to take care of me.

What a concept: Take care of the child. What mom considers taking care of is what most would consider neglect.

When I was three, she left me alone at the house everyday so she could go to work and support us, every day until I was in kindergarten.

When I was five, she showed me how to walk to kindergarten, set an alarm clock every day. I would go to kindergarten alone and eat free lunches.

In third grade, she started giving me a few dollars a week and saying "Here's money for food… get it yourself." That's about when I joined the Shitty Lives Support Group for third graders with… well… shitty lives. A group of kids with problems would get together with the school guidance councilor and talk about their problems. (I don’t know why I was put in that group. No one knew how my mother treated me. I guess I was just put in because I was the only ‘underprivileged’ kid in the school.)

When I was in fifth grade, I started hanging out with my best friend, Lola, constantly. I basically lived at her house. Her mom picked up on the fact that something was a little wrong with my life, so she let me stay there for days on end. I think Lola’s family is the only reason I’m sane today.

Lola would always talk about how her mom got mad at her when she got two words wrong on a spelling test.

“Why?” I asked, when she started talking about it on end.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I guess they want me to succeed at life.”

“That’s strange,” I said.

“Why?” Lola asked.

“My mom has never gotten mad at me for getting a bad grade,” I said.

“Well, have you ever gotten a bad grade?” Lola said. I didn’t say anything.

No, I hadn’t.

But mom never congratulated me for getting a hundred per cent on the weekly spelling tests.

Everyone would talk about how angry their parents would be when they got a low grade, or how happy their parents would be whenever they got a high grade.

They talked about not being able to play on their game boy if they made a bad grade.

They talked about getting ice cream if they got an exceptional grade.

My mom just seemed to silently sign my perfect spelling tests (so I could get credit for them) with a sigh and hand them back to me, unfazed.

I thought everyone was joking until I actually witnessed Lola getting prosecuted for having a bad grade.

We were sitting in her room, doing homework.

"Lola!" her mom yelled from downstairs. I thought nothing of her mom calling her downstairs. I just continued to color in all of the shapes on the worksheet that had prime numbers in them.

But then I heard yelling from downstairs. I stopped working and listened closely. It was Lola's mom yelling. I had never, in the past two years, heard Lola's mom this pissed off. I scooted as close to the open door as I could, without leaving the room; I didn't want anyone to think I'd been eavesdropping.

I didn't hear the entire thing, only pieces of it.

"Get your grades up… Study more frequently… Habits you form now will affect you the rest of your life," were the bits of the conversation that I heard. I was puzzled. I had never heard of such a lecture. I stifled a giggle. Lola was in trouble and it wasn’t because of me.

Out of curiosity, I wondered downstairs, to the landing and I poked my head into the living room.

I think it would be fair to say that I walked into a soap opera level argument.

Lola's mom was screaming her head off. Her face was red. The vein in her neck was throbbing.

Lola was leaning against the couch in the front room, teary eyed and in shock.

I think I was even more shocked than she was.

Lola's mom saw me leaning off the landing. She pulled herself out of her rage. "Junie, honey, I think you need to go home now," she said, forcing a smile. I nodded and ran upstairs to get my stuff together and go home.

That was one of those weird days when mom didn't get home until after I was asleep. She came home and kissed me good night like ‘good’ parents are supposed to do. I woke up.

"Good night, Junie," she said.

"Good night, mom," I said. She started to walk toward the door but I stopped her.

"Mommy?" I said. She turned around, annoyed that I was keeping her away from her television program. "Lola's mom got really mad at her for making a bad grade today," I said.

Mom paused. She sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Fucking rich people," she muttered. She softly closed the door and left.

I just stared at the dark door. I knew that Lola's mom was a parent than my mom would ever be. How couldn’t she be? She gave Lola and I milk and cookies every day after school. She asked Lola how her day was the minute Lola walked through the door. She showered Lola and her sister, Ophelia, with hugs, kisses and love. She was the best parent I knew of.

Were parents supposed to care about their kids' grades? My mom obviously didn’t care, but what about other parents? Was I the odd one out, like I was for so many other things? I was the only kid who’s had the same backpack since kindergarten. I was pretty sure I was the only person in my class who qualified for free school lunches. Other than Lola, I was the only person in my grade who wasn’t white.

Did my mom not care about me? Well, that was a proven fact, but did that mean she didn’t care about my future? The entire lecture that Lola's mom had shouted went through my mind. Lola’s parents both graduated high school with high-end grade point averages and went to out-of-state, big name colleges, so they were bound to at least care a little bit about how Lola did in school.

College…

Mom hadn't gone to college and she was still alive so it’s therefore possible to live without a college education. Is that why she didn't care? Because she knew I didn't need a college education? Mom didn’t even have a high school education. Even if she was surviving meal to meal, she still managed to feed me and herself.

Even if mom survived, I wanted a better life than she had made for herself.

The next day, we had a spelling test. I decided that I would purposefully get every single word wrong so I could see what mom's reaction to that would be. She might be indifferent to a passing grade, but what if I flunked?

When I got the test back, there was a big fat 'F' written in the top hand corner, right above my name.

"What happened, Junie? You're the best speller in the class!" the teacher asked me.

I explained how I thought mom didn't care, and how I was trying to get her attention. She just gave me one of those 'I'm sure she cares' looks, and moved on.

That night, I showed the grade to mom. She didn't even look at it. She just signed the spelling test, and went on with whatever I had interrupted.

I stared at her, disbelieving. She didn’t care. That was the final straw.

She wouldn’t care if I flunked everything. She wouldn’t care if a teacher called the house saying I did something wrong. She wouldn’t care if I stopped going to school.

She wouldn’t even care if I died.

She held no accountability for anything I did. She had passed up every single parenting opportunity ever given to her. Sure, she’s broke and working multiple jobs, but the least she could have done was make sure I was doing my homework, praise me if I did it and got a good score on it and scold me if I didn’t get a good score.

My eyes burned with tears as I retreated to my room. I was right. She didn't care at all.

That was when I realized that, if I wanted to make a better future for myself, I was totally on my own; left in the cold.

A/N-I was cleaning out my hard drive the other day and I found a bunch of old character interior monologues that I wrote for character development for various stories. Here's the result. Yeah, this isn't the best writing ever but it's not really supposed to be. I just wanted to capture a moment. :) Please review! I will add more, so don't forget to subscribe!