Disc 1
The Roads You Don’t See
Track 1
“System of Survival”
-Earth, Wind & Fire, 1987
“FUCK YOU! YOU AIN’T SHIT, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!”
“Shut the fuckup!”
It was 6:02A.M.—the time we’d set our alarm just to piss my mom off when she demanded it be set for six on the dot. We laughed, immature and proud, taunting her with our 6:02 chant. We whispered the last one, too afraid to face the spitting rage we knew we were stirring.
The funny thing was, my sister, Kat, and I never needed the alarm. Our parents’ relentless screaming woke us well before it ever sounded. At one point, we started betting on which would win: the clock or their mouths. It lost its excitement after a while—the inevitable rage-fests ruining the fun with their predictability.
Normally, my two sisters and I would get up, get dressed, and head out the door well before our bus arrived, just to escape the morning montage. But today was different—it was Saturday. And, more importantly, it was my birthday.
I waited an hour before I felt it was safe to enter the war zone. I heard the door slam about twenty minutes earlier, so I thought enough time had passed for whoever was left tocalm down. Honestly, I hoped it was my dad, but I knew it would be my mom. Dad always escaped, while Mom stayed to clean up the mess she often started—she liked to throw things.
Kat, Ren, and I made it downstairs and ate our breakfast in audible silence—French toast with extra cinnamon, doused in maple syrup. We didn’t talk much during meals—always afraid to stir the waters, unsure what was left from the lingering argument.
My sisters and I would often make funny faces at each other during meals; our silent way to ease the tension, if only between the three of us. We didn’t look much alike. Kat and I had warm brown hair, golden skin, and oval faces like our father's, but that’s where our resemblance ended. Ren had our mother’s pale olive complexion and round face full of freckles, but her eyes were something else entirely—a crystal sky blue, striking against her dark brown hair. No one knew where they came from, but they were unforgettable. They made her look like a porcelain doll, and Kat and I were sure that’s why she was Mom’s favorite.
Mom was the first to break the silence, shaking me out of my thoughts.
“So, what are your plans today, birthday girl?” She sounded more annoyed than interested. The lightness she aimed to set in her tone didn’t land—there wasn’t any joy there. There rarely was, but we were used to it.
I shrugged. “Just hanging with some friends.”
“Can I come?” Ren asked.
She was only two years younger than Kat and me, who were nine months apart. The gap wouldn’t matter much when we got older, but at our ages, it was a huge difference.I did my best to include her, but today wouldn’t be one of those days. I had planned early on for there to be alcohol in my day, and that was no place for Ren.
“Not today. But I’ll be back for cake and concerts, okay?” It was our tradition. The three of us would pick songs and choreograph routines to them all year long. Then, on our birthdays, we’d pick our favorites and put on a full concert, audience or not. It was fun, and even though I was getting older, I still looked forward to it.
She perked up, hiding her disappointment, and an hour later, Kat and I were out the door.
The late-spring air was warmer than it should have been for May—more like midsummer rather than just before it. The sky was a perfect blue with puffy white clouds that resembled those of a Bob Ross painting. Outside of my home, I imagined the world as a canvas, where one could create any life they dreamed. I thought of Bob Ross and how his gentle strokes along the blank canvas never seemed to intimidate him. His calm voice told me there were ‘no mistakes in art, just happy accidents’ and that there are ‘no limits to our world, only to our imagination.’ His small encouragement of freedom stood with me like a sweet song that gave me something to hope for.
We walked down the street toward our bus stop to meet my friend, Enzo. He was a year older than us. He was on the corner where he always waited for me—not because he was a gentleman, but because my mom told him that if he wanted to hang out with me, he’d “better walk his ass to my street to get me.” She said no daughter of hers would be walking around town by herself to meet boys, let alone older ones. At the time, I thought it was a stupid rule, and it embarrassed the hell out of me.
Looking back, I see she tried to show me my worth. She wanted me to experience the chivalry I deserved, even if she never showed it herself. I’m sure she thought it was a good way to weed out the assholes, but unfortunately, it didn’t work.
Some people, like Enzo, are driven by a challenge. I think her rules made me more enticing—like a mountain he was determined to conquer. Because Enzo listened to absolutely no one, yet he showed up at my corner each time we hung out.
The first time he met me, he leaned against the brick wall, looking like he owned it. His blondish-brown locks shone in the afternoon sun, falling just above his midnight blue eyes that caught me like a tide, deep as the Mediterranean. He made waiting for me seem like part of his plan—not a desperate move, but a deliberate one. And the moment our eyes met, I knew it wasn’t about rules. He wasn’t just chasing the climb; he was chasing me. And it was exactly what I wanted.
This time was no different. He stood there, eyeing me with his cocky grin, but I couldn’t meet his gaze for long. This time, he was accompanied by another boy. Normally, I wouldn’t have batted an eye, but the way this boy looked at me, it felt like he already knew me, like he’d heard stories, and every story made me bolder, wilder, and softer than I really was. It wasn’t curiosity in his eyes. It was interest. It was certainty. And while it should have scared me half to death, I welcomed the thrill of it.
The friend was slightly shorter than Enzo, but not by much. It was hard to tell his physique under his baggy clothes. He wasn’t scrawny, but he wasn’t bulky either. He was lean, with just enough definition to hint at a quiet strength. The kind you don’t notice right away, until yourealize he’d been holding your gaze a second too long, and you, your breath a second too short.
His face didn’t have the same maturity as Enzo’s. Enzo had already peaked in puberty, but his friend’s face showed a kind of softness, as if the harshness of the world hadn’t yet stolen his innocence. But when I got closer and looked into the warm brown eyes staring back at me, they weren’t innocent at all. They were sharp and knowing, flickering with a dangerous kind of confidence, as if he had seen more than he should and dared me to see it too. I stared back at him, curious about who he was and what he saw when he looked at me.
And the longer I looked, the more stuck I felt.
Meanwhile, Enzo was beating the shit out of an old telephone pole, completely oblivious.
