Help (explicit)

I laughed, but I didn’t mean to laugh. What I meant to do was get up, throw my cards down, and scream in her face. What I said was, “This is ridiculous,” with an undertone of amusement.

My mom didn’t say anything.

I acted like she cared what was wrong. “I don’t know. I feel like I need more…” I drew a blank, what was the word? “I need more credit than dad gives me.” It was a good point for my mom to tune in.

She didn’t.

“Like, I don’t mean to seem pompous,” was my classic way of saying, “Give me more fucking respect asshole!” I continued, “but I’m better than you guys think of me.” I really fucked up the wording there, but at least I didn’t start crying like the pussy that I was. “Like, out of my whole class, I’m one of the smartest people.” Okay, you came in soft there, dumbass. You’re better than that, people come to you for answers and treat you like a fucking god.

“Well I think you have a lot of god-given talent that a lot of other people don’t have.” Oh yeah? Well fuck you, I earned all of this and now, I’m not backing down, bitch.

I laughed at her plain insanity. She thought I was being lighthearted. “Mom, there’s a lot of science that proves that no one really has talent,” this was true, and I wasn’t pulling it out of my ass like my dad so often claimed, “they just work on a specific subject more before anyone else and so they’re ahead of the game.” Is what I wish I said, but of course, everything that I mean to say that I have planned out articulately in my mind just goes to shit whenever I present it to anyone because, well, I’m a fucking pussy. What I actually said, I’m sure, was a mix of jumbled idioms that meant no sense together.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s true, I know a lot of people who’ve spent much less time running than me and would do better in a race.” It always comes down to running, doesn’t it?

“Yep, well I’m sure that they do something else to-“

“Nope.”

Fucking asshole, did you just cut me off mid-sentence?

“They don’t,” she finished. Now’s the time to tell her that you’ve read for nearly an hour every fucking day since you knew how to read.

But I didn’t. I didn’t because I was a cowering idiot. So I just said, “ok,” and took my dog for a walk, and at that moment, I realized that I had to write a book because I’m a kid, and no one will ever take me seriously because I can only say “when I grow up, I wanna be a witer!” and I can’t tell them that yes, I am writing a book, because for some reason I have this profound inferiority complex and if I tell anyone that I’m two years ahead of the average fourteen-year-old and I’m twenty thousand words into a novel because I might make someone hate me because I’m smarter than they want me to be and I’ll sound “like a pompous asshole.”