Justice Served

02 | To Hell With Laws & Law Enforcement

Chapter Two
Jayce Mirella

"You've fucking lost it," Blue says with so much reverence that I actually began to believe that I have actually fucking lost it—truthfully, I just may have lost it but down the line, I expected myself to come up with crazy shit like this I just didn't know that it would be this soon.

She takes a large swig of her cheap gas station beer, I watch her reach up to wipe the remnants of the gross tasting brown liquid with the sleeve of her bare arm. With a countdown programmed and already installed in my brain, I await her burp that comes in five, four, three, two...ah, there it is and it's a loud one. Common decency to say excuse me? We don't know her because she doesn't exist. Truthfully, she never existed.

Scratching her head, I could see her eyes begin to dart around the room. She's in deep thought, something that threw me for a loop every time I noticed her begin to overthink. I love Blue with all of my heart, despite my weird way of showing it, but sometimes—nearly all of the damn time, she isn't the brightest light bulb among the plethora of light bulbs shining brightly within a room.

I've known her for as long as I can remember.

I vividly remember when I was fifteen walking into the 7-Eleven that was blocks away from the apartment I shared with my mother. It was the year 2015, and the crisp air of fall tickled my skin, the chill temperature was my kryptonite because my mother couldn't afford to buy me a winter jacket so I went around wearing short leaves all year round.

The November air bit my skin as it had began to give me a cold I wouldn't be able to shake off for weeks because medicine was expensive, and still is. A fucking cold was the least of my worries back then. I could hardly feel the cold or goosebumps that spread across my arms, the snot dripping down my nose as my eyes watered from the frigid temperatures of Manhattan, New York. The only thing I felt back then was hatred and anger.

The previous year, Spring of 2014, my father died. It was so unexpected and sudden. The image of me running down the street with that childlike smile on my face as my friends chased me with sticks—yes fucking sticks, when you're broke any and everything becomes a toy, is still so vivid in my head. They pretended that the sticks were light-sabers, and I pretended to be Princess Leia because we were geeks who had nothing better to do than to watch Star Wars because it was everything back then.

My friends and I weren't fortunate enough to really afford cable so we had just finished watching the movie by standing outside a two story home that was far from my apartment complex at the time. We would peer into their living rooms, and pray that we didn't get caught. Mom texted me to tell me to come home early because she was making my favorite dinner, but I knew it was a lie, she just wanted to get me home so that I could clean the mess she makes whenever she finishes indulging in liquor we couldn't afford.

She was an alcoholic, but she wouldn't fix herself even if God himself came down and slapped her across the face. Dad was the only one who made things in that fucking house bearable, he was truly the glue that held our, 'family,' together and made me feel like our situation wasn't as bad as it actually was. 

We were always struggling financially. At the time I didn't realize how bad it was, I just knew that my parents argued all the time while throwing around the word, 'poverty,' and, 'debt,' like it was a pleasant greeting. It's depressing that now that I've grown up I know exactly what we were going through.

Ignorance truly is bliss.

As my friends had chased me with their makeshift light-sabers, I laughed as my hair pulled up into a slicked back ponytail bounced vibrantly with ever step I took. I tripped on my own two feet, and came tumbling down onto the hard pavement littered with garbage and filth from those who didn't have the cutesy to throw their trash into the proper disposal.