This is a repost of the first part of a story I previously had taken down.
All characters are over 18.
This is fiction.
This is 100% an original work by me. I assert my full rights in all areas where this story is viewed.
*****
Brian waited in line at the movie theater but when it was his turn the ticket taker stopped him.
"Sorry, kid. You have to be accompanied by an adult to see this movie."
"I am an adult."
"Sorry, move aside."
"I'm 18." Brian protested.
"Show me your ID."
Brian pulled out his state issued ID and handed it over. The man looked at it and shook his head. "You don't look 18 and this looks like a fake ID."
"It's not."
"Go back to the box office and they'll give you a refund."
"I don't want a refund. I want to see the movie."
"I can't help you kid."
"This is discrimination. I can call the cops on you for this."
"And when they get here I'll tell them that we can refuse service to anyone for any reason. Now get the fuck out of here before I call the cops on you for trespassing."
Just then a group of people behind Brian all started laughing. "Yeah, get the fuck out of here, NERD."
Brian turned and saw their faces. He knew who they were. He used to go to school with them. Brian grit his teeth and walked out. This was bullshit. He'd never go to that theater ever again. Or maybe he would. Maybe after his grand plan for life finally took off he'd come back to this place and buy it. In the meantime maybe he'd hack into their computer system and mess with all their records.
As he walked through downtown he reached up and felt his hair. It was so short now. The boarding school he went to had let him grow out his hair as long as he wanted but for graduation they'd made him cut it. Brian tried to protest but they insisted that it was a requirement. They reasoned that he needed to look good for his family when he walked across the stage.
Then when graduation finally came no one in his family had shown up. Even the kid in foster care who didn't even have a family had people there supporting him but Brian's family all wanted him to just go away. Why hadn't his mother just given him away when he was born? He gave her credit for standing up to his grandparents, who had wanted her to get an abortion. He'd rather be alive than not so but that event did not make up for how she'd treated him all these years.
He understood why they felt that way but he didn't have to like it.
He arrived at the small house that was his mother's home. He'd have to live there for the next two and a half months. He didn't want to. If his scholarship had covered summer school then he'd be out the door and moved into a college dorm faster than you could blink. But it didn't. At least next summer he likely wouldn't have to come back here. He already had a part time job lined up in for when his first semester as a college freshman started. He'd work and save up and then next summer he'd be able to afford to stay somewhere else.
The house was small and didn't hold a lot of good memories for Brian. He'd had friends who's living rooms were larger than this whole house. There was no room for anything. Everything was pressed against everything else at it made cleaning such a chore that his mother rarely did it. Brian didn't have his own room. Only his mother did and the door to her room had been damaged a while back and was taken off it's hinges. Brian used to sleep on a thin mattress they used to slide behind the sofa in the daytime. That mattress was gone now so he figured he's be sleeping on the sofa, if he could find a place to put all those clothes that were folded and stacked up on it.
Then another thought came to him. His mother wouldn't be home. Maybe he could just sleep in her bed. This was ridiculous. Why did they have to live this way? When he got to college he was going to find out which major lead to the highest paying career and pick that. He was tired of being poor. He was going to get a good job. They'd always told him that a good education was your ticket out of poverty. Unlike the ticket to the movie he'd wanted to see, he fully intended to cash this one and wasn't going to let anything stop him.
Brian went into the house and heard that someone was in the shower. He sighed. He had thought he'd have the house all to himself. His mother was supposed to be in the city staying at her boyfriend's apartment. But no. His mom finished her shower and casually walked naked through the house. She stopped in the living room to finish drying her hair.
Brian was not shocked by this. He'd seen his mother naked hundreds of times. When you live in a house as small as this there was no privacy. The living room was really just an extension of her bedroom. It probably would have made life easier to just knock the wall down.
"I'm home mom." Brian said and his mother stopped and pulled the towel down from her head.
"Brian. What are you doing here?"
"I'm home. I graduated."
"But school doesn't get out for another week."
"The seniors graduate a week early."
"Really?" his mother said in annoyance with the towel in her hand by her side without even bothering to try to cover up. "Well, couldn't you have stayed there until everyone got out?"
"No. It doesn't work that way."
"Well, I don't know what you're going to do here. Are you going to get an apartment?"
"Why would I do that?"
"You can't live here. You're 18 now."
"I don't have any money to do anything else."
His mother was not happy about this. She got on the phone and started calling around. Brian knew what was going on. She was going to push Brian onto someone else.
"I can't have him here. He'll ruin everything. He won't get in your way though. He'll probably just sit and read books all day. He won't mind sleeping on the couch."
He wanted to tell his mother that he could hear her but she didn't care.
So it was decided. Brian would leave and go stay with his mother's sister. Instead of getting a good night's sleep after riding the bus system for two days to get home, Brian had to take his one suitcase and one briefcase that held everything he owned in the entire world and take a 27 hour train ride overnight half way across the country to another climate to go stay with his aunt because his mother just couldn't be bothered with having her son in the house.
Brian arrived at his aunt's apartment in the big city but couldn't get into the building. He had to sit and wait in the park down the street until she got off work. He didn't know her phone number and had no money for a pay phone even if he did.
He really didn't remember what his aunt looked like. He looked at the people passing and tried to see if he could get a sight of her but everyone was a stranger.
When the sun started to go down he asked the guy at the lobby to call up to his aunt's apartment again and see if she was there. His aunt answered and they finally let him go up.
As he rode the elevator up he was very impressed with how clean and well built everything was. He arrived on his aunt's floor and as soon as the elevator opened he saw a tall attractive woman standing there waiting for him.
"Hey, Brian." his aunt welcomed him. "Long trip?"
"Too long." They walked down the hall way for a bit and she opened the door to her apartment which wasn't that big but still much bigger than his mom's place. Another notable difference was just how clean it was. There was nothing out of place.
"Put your bags down and relax."
"Thanks."
"Did you eat dinner?"
"I haven't eaten for three days."
"Really! I bet you're starving."
"Something like that."
"Grab whatever you want in the kitchen."
"Thanks. I wanted to ask. Do you have internet?"
"Yep. But my computer's broken."
"Oh. I can probably fix it for you if you want."
She looked at him skeptically. "No, that's ok. Don't touch it."
Brian got some dinner and eventually got a proper shower. His aunt spent the night watching TV. When it got late she went to bed and Brian slept on the sofa.
The next morning Brian's 26 year old aunt woke him up and gave him the pass code for the elevator so he'd be able to exit and enter the building as he pleased. Brian had no idea where to go in the city so he didn't plan on doing anything.
He was writing in his notebook when his aunt came home from work. She threw herself down on the sofa and rested for a few minutes and then got up and got some orange juice.
"What're you doing?" she asked as she looked at the equations he was working on.
"Nothing."
