kit keeni. 6. nextgen fin.

Persia's a trainwreck, but she's my trainwreck. Y'know?

Figured the least I could do for her is look after her. After she extremely unwillingly brought me into this world, gave me the gift of life, etcetera. Decided not to smother me as a babe, pass it off as infant death syndrome. I kinda owe it to her.

She is my Mom after all - though she's never had me call her that, told me it was far too traditional. "You're Kit," she'd tell me over breakfast-and-lunch (we always combined that meal, only learned that they're two separate things when I was six) "and I'm Persia. Why complicate things, darling?"

Least she gave me a gender-neutral name. Said she knew I was unique, even in the womb. Mother's intuition - the first and last time she'd ever feel it. Only after they told her she was too far along to have one of those backstreet ops did she decide I was worth a spare thought or two. Loves to remind me that I was an accident, one-night-stand gone wrong. "Fuck knows," is all Persia would answer when I could bother to ask who my father was. I got the impression that her shrug meant there were more than two options and I can't be assed to go down that minefield.

"I didn't have a Dad. And look how I turned out!"

Ruffle my hair, call me her sweets. My silence that followed was the point, but I don't think she heard it.

We still live in the house where I was born. Gave me the attic room to myself when I grew too tall to share the bed with her (thirteen I shot up like a bean sprout). Funny how she's barely 5ft 1-and-a-half and I'm nearly twice her height. Universe knows where I got that from, but it certainly wasn't the Keeni side.

One of my first memories is Persia showing me all the corners in the attic where the spiders lived. Said they were her best friends and we mustn't ever hurt them. They're just trying to survive in this house just as we are. Plus Steve, the current batch's great great great grandfather was the only man who ever treated her right. Apart from me but, you know, I'm somewhere in-between. Technically. But my being here doesn't count.

Kids at school like to act weird about her but honestly, despite the keeping me at arms length and treating me like a friend more than her own child, Persia's pretty cool. Lets me wear her old clothes, never blinked when I ran around being painfully me. Grandma would tutt a little but she told her to Fuck Off And Leave The Kid Alone, light another cigarette, I'd carry on running about in the yard and all was right in the world. 

On the rare occasion Persia ever turned up to pick me up from school the guys in my class would be so weird. Half of them would be asking if she was single (ew, gross, that's my mother? Yes, she is, but that's beside the point-) and the other all joked about how she fucked anything with two legs and a heartbeat. I'd chirp back with some witty comment like 'well you're shit out of luck, Lee, you heartless fuck' and they'd all attempt to dogpile, but then Persia would come over and ask where I was and they would scatter, gawking and suddenly calling her ma'am? Fuckin' weird.

I pay no mind to it though. They're all virgins anyway. Wouldn't know their way around a beautiful woman if they had a map. I'd be more confused as to why Persia was there. Sometimes there was some Dad there she fancied, or needed me as a prop to play strong-willed single mother battling the odds in public. I don't know who the fuck she was fooling but it sure wasn't me. Still, she'd buy me a bag of candy on the way home, so I did as I was told. Looked the part, doting yet independent-enough child. Wasn't even pretending, really, that's just how we are. Like trains running on the same - yet parallel, tracks, sometimes crossing, sometimes not.

It's like I said - she's a trainwreck, I'm the tracks. Someone's gotta put her back on her path when she breaks down.