She was tired. She felt exhaustion in the marrow of her bones, weighing her down until her limbs were lead. She felt it in the pit of her stomach like a stone. It was only six o’clock and already she could feel her eyes beginning to slide closed, her head veering dangerously towards the window.
The little girl who sat across the bus aisle watched in fascination as the breath from Sara’s open, slightly snoring mouth began to fog up the window. It was cold outside, that Friday night in November, and the breath formed tiny crystals against the glass. It was still early but the sun was nothing more than a rosy glimmer on the horizon. The sky overhead was a deep, thunder-gray shot through with silver. There was snow in the forecast. The city would be coated in downy whiteness by morning and everyone was rushing home to spend the night tucked into blankets, ready to watch the tiny white flakes melt into darkness.
Sara didn’t care about any of that. She was just trying to get home. There were another four chapters of biochem to read before the exam next Wednesday and a paper due on Tuesday that she desperately needed to start researching.
And she had to get up early for work tomorrow. She was still in her waitressing uniform and the dark cotton was heavy with the scent of grease. She’d been serving up burgers and fries since class let out at ten, and she could smell the French fries in her hair.
Hopefully she could get some work done before her father got home. Hopefully, she thought, allowing her eyes to slide shut, he wouldn’t come home at all.
The bus jolted to a heavy stop, throwing all of the passengers forwards as the doors squeezed open. Mournfully, she dragged her eyes open, scooped up her things and pulled herself off of the bus, trudging three blocks to their apartment building.
The cold bit her face, turning her cheeks a fierce red and making her eyes water. She was grateful that it woke her up enough to get her home, but a jaw-cracking yawn hit her as soon as the keys were in the door.
She shed her coat as the warmth of the apartment hit her, dropping it on the couch. She wandered through the messy living room to the kitchen. There were clothes everywhere, scattered across the couch and piled on the floor. Empty food containers lined the coffee table and most of the counters in the kitchen, punctuated by empty bottles and water stains where other bottles had been. The dishes in the sink were stacked haphazardly, as though they were abandoned by a careless child.
She would wash the dishes later, she decided, as she slid a lean cuisine out of the freezer and into the microwave.
No other part of the mess belonged to her. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t clean up after him anymore, but she needed the dishes to eat off of, so she would wash them.
Sitting at the sticky dining room table, she picked through the edible parts of the microwaveable meal and drank a glass of water. She left the carton from the food on the table. He wouldn’t notice it anyway.
Shifting back into the living room, she dragged her heavy backpack with her onto the couch and pulled the biochem book onto her lap. It sat there like a stone for several moments before she opened it, trying to force her tired eyes to concentrate on the chemical makeup of the digestive tract, but it was no good. The colors wavered before her eyes, the words blurring and becoming incomprehensible.
Maybe, she thought, as she closed the book and put it back into her bag, if she just closed her eyes for fifteen or twenty minutes, she would be able to concentrate. Maybe, she thought as she yawned and lay back against the pillows of the smelly old couch. Her eyes focused on the clock on the VCR. It was 6:40. If she just slept till 7, she’d still be able to get everything done just fine.
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