Chapter 9

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“Hey guys, how was school?” Sasha asked as Seth and Jenn piled into the car.
“Fine,” Jenn sang.
Seth slammed the door loudly. “Seth? How’d it go for you?” Sasha asked him wth a concerned expression.
He exhaled. “Great,” he lied through his teeth; he already hated school. This was the one place that he could ever hear the lights without straining his ears.
In fact, almost everything about it was irritating to him. Mostly, it was really loud. His sensitive ears picked up every noise happening. There were footsteps everywhere. The lights burned his eyes and the sound made his mind foggy. The teachers were too loud and you could hear people chomping on their gum like a cow chews its cud.
He pulled his black backpack over his legs and leaned against the door with his shoulder. He sighed inwardly. “Was someone giving him a hard time?” he barely heard Sasha ask Jenn. Her jacket rustled as she shook her head.
The car started and the world whirred into motion.
Seth said nothing and watched the road go by through a few strands of his dark hair.
“Hey, Seth, Flashman said that you had art with him,” Jenn said, reaching across the seat to poke his backpack with one finger then sitting back.
He broke his concentration on the road and looked at her with a purposeful bored look. “Yep,” he said the one word quickly.
Jenn nodded once.
“You guys have a lot of homework?” asked Sasha.
“No,” Jenn answered for the both of them.
“Oh, because Blake wanted to take Seth shopping for some new clothes. I can take you with me, Jenn, and we can go get ice cream or something.”
Seth frowned. “I’ve got clothes,” he said seriously.
“I know, but you look like you’re growing out of them,” Sasha watched him momentarily from the rear-view mirror. “You really need a new coat.”
This angered him. “What’s wrong with my coat? ”
Sasha bit her lip. “It’s a little…” she trailed off.
“Ghetto?” Seth provided.
“No!” Sasha exclaimed, one hand flying off the wheel and coming back to rest on the black leather again. “No! That wasn’t what I was going to say! I was going to say ‘old’. They’re a little worn.”
Of course it was, it had been his dad’s, seven years ago. He remembered his father wearing it at the dinner table, the dark fabric blending into him, becoming him. Seth had looked up to his father, and when he left when Seth was seven, it had killed him. He saw that his father didn’t care for him the same way that he cared for the dark young man.
But he left The Coat.
Seth glared. “My coat is fine,” he said, finishing the discussion.

There were only clips of things that Seth remembered about his father. He remembered his mother telling him that he looked just like him. Same eyes, same hair, same fair skin. His mother told him he had his father’s strong hands.
His father never yelled at the children. Never talked to them either. He showed no interest in Violet, his daughter. Seth was of more importance to him, and so occasionally, he would get a few dollars to go spend on himself.
Seth had been a good boy, and he never used the money for himself. He gave it to his mother for groceries or something.
Mom never had any money. It was Daddy who had all the cash. Dad gambled. Dad won.
His father drank a lot. He also fought with his wife a lot, and hit her.
Seth always thought that his father was disappointed that he had been born. That both his children had. He didn’t think that his father found it convenient to have children to have to return to. Seth’s mother was demanding, and bitter. Seth didn’t like her either, and wondered what his father had thought about him when he first met her.
Secretly, Seth really believed that he was an accident. Nobody had ever really wanted him anyway, except Violet, but she had been less wanted that him. She was an accident too.