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Your name is Gamzee Makara and you're eight years old. You have a rather puzzling interest in juggling breakable things and riding your unicycle which is way too big for you but it's something your father got you on your last birthday so you tend to regard it with fond feelings, no matter how many scrapes litter your knees and arms after losing your balance and falling down.
Your part of the bedroom is lovingly decorated with the few clown dolls you own and the floor cluttered with clubs and leftover facepaint. Your favorite dolls keeps you company as you stare up at the ceiling of your room, counting the cracks and watching the spiders until your eyes are dry and you're forced to blink. Everything is watery and the tiny stars your father glued to the ceiling to act as your nightlights are suddenly bright and almost glowing and it's one of the most beautiful things you see every day. So your lips form the word Miracles even if your voice doesn't break the silence.
Slowly, you shift to look at your best friend, one of the Lil' Cal dolls, which made every kid cry out in sheer horror when they appeared on the market about four years ago.
But not you. When you found him in a dumpster, badly sewn together and obviously abandoned, you took him with you and asked your father to fix him. It took him quite long but now Lil' Cal looks almost as good as new, in your humble opinion.
He's been pretty amazing at keeping the nightmares away since the day you found him and he's been the only one to keep you company while you wait for your father to show up.
Your father is the best father there is even if he works all day and is rarely around to do more than smile tiredly and ruffle your hair before he's out through the door again, looking tense and brittle and stitched together out of scraps of faded out cloth.
You wish he would be around more but you understand he's doing this because he loves you very much and wants you to be happy. And you are, even if you sometimes wish you had a lawn and didn't live on the fifth floor of a smelly apartment building. But he's trying so hard so whenever you see him, you give him a hug and tell him you love him and that he's the best father anyone could have hoped for. Sometimes, his breath hitches and he hugs you back so tightly that you feel like your bones will crack but you'll just pat his back and hug him closer in return.
Sometimes, your love for him makes your stomach turn and churn and your heart feels heavy and your head light, especially when he doesn't come home for several days and there's no more food around (but water is. There's always water coming from the faucet and it's a miracle).
Today, there's food in the kitchen, you remember because you saw the apples on a plate, just waiting for you with their cheerful, plump red faces, and a banana, bright and yellow like the sun.
So you get up and take Lil' Cal along as you make your way to the kitchen. As you continue to get closer, you see that the apples already have fluffy parts and the banana you compared to a sun before looks now more like the night sky or molten chocolate. But you don't complain, grabbing an apple and the banana, wandering over to the sink to wash the fluffy parts off the apple before taking a bite out of it. The taste is off but you only shrug your shoulders and peel the banana, putting it on a separate plate for Lil' Cal to eat (he never does which means more food for you. He's really a great friend) and then take everything over to the tiny living room with the old TV.
You flop down on the couch and position your best friend next to you while you slowly devour your apple. You've noticed you won't get hungry soon if you eat slowly and drink a lot of water which means more food for your father when (if) he comes home and he has to eat something too, right? You wouldn't want him to starve.
You don't turn the TV on because it's been broken for weeks now but that's okay, summer vacation will be over tomorrow anyway and then you'll go to a new school and the teacher will tell you about all the miracles you need to know.
Instead of TV, you start watching the old clock hanging on the wall above the TV, the
tick tock tick
more soothing than any TV show so you focus on that while you chew thoughtfully, gaze drifting to Lil' Cal and then asking him if you can really have the food and if he's okay with it.
He nods and you grin in reply and give him a appreciative pat on the arm before picking up the banana and stuffing your face with it. Your stomach grumbles angrily, which makes you sigh and get up to fetch some water.
You don't know how long you really took but when you return to the kitchen, the long arrow on the clock is suddenly down to point at the six and the short one points to the seven as if to wave at you and your heart leaps into your throat because it means that your father will be coming home soon so you sprint over to Lil' Cal and take him along to wash your glass and the dish you used.
Once your father gets home, you'll give him the biggest hug and tell him that you missed him and if he can come with you on your first day of school tomorrow because it's a new one and he'll probably want to make sure the teacher will allow you to wear your facepaint sometimes. You're so excited and your grin gets so wide that our cheeks hurt and you can only hope he'll show up soon. You grab your favorite doll again and sit down on the couch, clutching Lil' Cal close to your chest as you watch the door with rapt attention, mouth slightly open as you wait for the familiar turn of your father's key in the lock and his tired but loving smile and
any minute now he'll show up, he better show up because--
Because.
You blink and shake your head at the sudden surge of anger. Where did that come from?
You turn your lazy stare towards the clock again and watch the minutes tick by, tick tock and tick tick tick until it's tock again and the rhythm slowly starts to make you drowsy and you lie down, just for a minute, to rest your eyes, so you'll be full of energy when your father gets back.
When you wake up, it's to the noise of your shrill alarm clock which always gives you headaches and you slowly push the blanket off your chest, blinking sleepily and wondering when your father came home and when you hugged him and talked to him and when you went to bed and-
Oh.
You missed him again.
Sighing, you get out of bed (wondering how you ended up there in the first place) and pull out a couple of semi-clean clothes from your pile on the ground and put them on before wandering to the kitchen (just like last night) and find the plate devoid of fruit but when you open the fridge, you find carrots and a couple of grapes and a bottle of milk from which you take a careful sip and when the taste doesn't make your nose wrinkle, you take another, larger gulp. There's a note for you on the table and you pick it up carefully, afraid it'll burst into flames if you clutch it too tightly or disappear and you don't want it to go away because it's from your father.
You read the note and your lips curl into a wistful, sad (angry) smile before folding it carefully and storing it in your backpack for your teacher to read later.
Then you grab a handful of grapes and go to brush your teeth but forget to tend to your messy hair, instead going straight to Lil' Cal and giving him the hug you wanted to give your father. You hug him until you can feel your own arms on the other side, his stuffing worn and almost gone.
You tell him that you love him and that you'll be back soon and then you'll tell him about all the miracles you encountered today.
You place him on the couch so he'll be able to greet you when you come back home.
With a small wave to Cal, you grab your key and pull the door closed behind him.
For a moment, you want to turn right around and march back into your home and stay there until your guardian comes home but he's working so hard so you should be working hard too and he'd be so disappointed if you didn't go to school.
So you go.