(2)

I had to take care of the daily tasks that my father had laid out for me. My dad, my dad has been depressed for ever since my mom died. It makes my life harder, I guess. I don’t want to get depressed too, so I try to laugh as much as I can. Even when it is something stupid, like a fart, I would laugh. I do this to keep the sadness away. I don’t have many friends. I got very anti-social when my mom died. So I only have Astrid as my friend now. She sticks with me through thick and thin. She is always at my side when I need her. And she only lives a couple of blocks away too. I mostly take my playing cards with me and we would play any kind of game. We will be poker masters at age 20, be certain that will happen. Astrid is very intrigued with magic and everything supernatural. She has a lot of books, but her parents are rich, so it isn’t surprising. She has all kinds of books too. But the most will go on about magic in our history and what magic was, what it consisted of and everything. She also has a lot of books on dragons, fairies and all those fairy tale and mythological creatures. She is quite obsessed with them and talks every time about it. And every evening she even reads out loud. I like it though, it makes me understand my moms’ story better, even though she didn’t tell me much… When Astrid reads out of the books, I feel closer to my mom. So it makes me happy, but also sad at the same time. When I think about my mom only her smiling face pops up and that sets me at ease. It’s like I erased my sick mothers’ face that haunted my memory, but every now and then it would pop up in a nightmare. That’s something different and irritating. It mostly ruins my whole day and I walk around like a zombie and my father would scold me. At school I wouldn’t learn anything at all. This is a curse I tell you. Astrid sometimes talks about trying out magic, but we know magic died out thousands of years ago. Even if you believed in a magical lamp with a genie, I am sorry to burst your bubble, but they also died. Not that I wouldn’t like magic to come back, but it seems like I live more in reality and Astrid in her dreams. I hope she’ll realize soon that she has to put her two feet on the ground, but I never tell her, because I would take away that nice innocent feature of her. Some grow up faster than others, and I think I am growing up very fast. My dad wants me to do a lot in the house, though I have to finish my homework first while he is making dinner. Yes, he only cooks and washes clothes, I think. I clean the house and that is true. I am living the life of a grown up, I think sometimes. Why? Because I have to do the things my mom did, I even live more like a college student. The house is actually mostly mine, as my dad isn’t home a lot. It’s sad, I know. Nothing can be changed, though. This is what I have to deal with and laughing is hard, but I do my best. I can’t lose against depression, though sometimes I think I am already succumbed to it.