Skye Life Part 2

The Skye's small apartment was dirty - the kind of dirty that would never come clean, not like the apartments in the inner city, white, pristine and something called ‘minimalist.” They couldn’t get more minimal, Cyd thought bitterly as she folded a threadbare flannel Isaac carelessly had discarded days before. They couldn’t afford ‘things.’ Still, with their second and third hand mismatched furniture, the apartment was dingy. She hung the flannel in the apartment's one closet which also served as a bedroom for Isaac when he was home. His mattress barely fit, and it was a good thing at 13 years old he was short, not like Mathias whose feet hung over the side of the couch he slept on unless he curled up on his side. A coin toss had decided that she would get the one bedroom, though knowing Mathias - he'd rigged it to lose.

Cyd wanted more for her brothers - Mathias who was sharp as a tack and could have had his pick of universities, if only they had the money to send him. Even with a full ride, Cyd and Isaac couldn’t survive on what she made alone.

There was never enough of anything, not enough heat, or hot water, food, the stove with its one working burner barely boiled water, and the freezer never cold enough to make ice. Certainly not enough money, not even with her extra hours and Mathias’ extra shifts. Not even with Mathias’ ‘extra curricular’ income.

“Up up, or down down?” She asked herself, looking at the tackle case full of pills. “Down Down,” she decided, taking a light blue pill marked with a K, swallowing it just as she stepped in the shower.

Fuck the sprawl.