"Are we there yet?" yelled a boisterous 18-year-old as he tugged on the seatbelt that was starting to leave marks on his neck.
"Soon," replied a boy, merely a year older, as his impatient fingers rattled along the steering wheel. His entire body was clammy as he fidgeted around in his seat, trying to brush off his mild frustration. "Any minute now, honestly."
The younger boy let out the biggest sigh. If only he could leave the stuffy car. "Brenden - why are we going all the way to Sadlunt County, to Mom's?"
"Well, Cody, our asshole father left us with no home and our family back in Pentzille doesn't seem to care, so this is what's got to happen. It's best, especially for you."
Months ago, their father had let his alcoholism twirl out hand more intensely than ever before. Upon getting laid off at his job after he and his sister were witnessed destroying property during an eventful bar fight, their father had later become sober to find himself in a ten foot hole without a rope. Cody and Brenden found him desperately sucking money through any source - which would clearly never be repaid, the sources even being a thing known as "saved rent money." They couldn't help but notice the shameless, eventual disappearance of appliances, which were never of good quality to begin with, and just days before now the couch had been moved into a stranger's truck to be replaced by small bills. The food transformed into alcoholic beverages, the amount increasing with the more money their father became insensitive enough to leech. It was about nothing but affording the alcohol. And just the prior day, the eviction notice stamped onto the door had thrown their father into an abusive, furious rage, and it led to the end of the needle for their tolerance.
Brenden then told his brother, "I know we haven't seen her in quite a long time. But Mom and I talked yesterday; her house seems really nice, she has the next few months off, and she immediately accepted that we needed a place."