The Weight of Ordinary
October 7th, 6:47 AM
The alarm screams at me like it's got a personal grudge. I slam my hand down on it—missing twice because I can't see without my glasses—and finally silence the thing. My room's still dark, but there's that gray pre-morning light creeping through the blinds that tells me I've got no choice but to face another day.
I fumble for my glasses on the nightstand. The world sharpens into focus: my desk buried under textbooks, the poster of Neil deGrasse Tyson I put up in ninth grade before I realized nobody thought that was cool, my laundry basket overflowing because I keep forgetting to actually do the laundry.
"Jhaeron! You up?" Granny's voice carries up the stairs, sharp and no-nonsense even at this ungodly hour.
"Yeah, Granny!"
I drag myself out of bed, catching my reflection in the mirror as I pass. Pale skin, messy brown hair sticking up in seventeen different directions, arms like toothpicks poking out of my faded science club t-shirt. The glasses don't help—thick black frames that seemed like a good idea at the optometrist's office but just make me look like I'm cosplaying a librarian. I'm seventeen, five-foot-nine, and weigh maybe one-thirty soaking wet. The kids at school have plenty of creative ways to remind me of all this.
I throw on jeans and a hoodie—gray, nondescript, the kind of thing that helps you blend into walls—and head downstairs.
The kitchen smells like coffee and whatever breakfast sandwich Granny's assembling at lightning speed. She's already dressed in one of her business pantsuits, her silver hair pulled back tight, phone wedged between her shoulder and ear as she talks numbers with someone. Halden Dairy Company doesn't run itself, and Granny sure as hell isn't going to let it slow down just because she's fifty-eight.
"—no, I told you, we need the shipment out by Thursday, not Friday. Thursday, Marcus, or we lose the contract—" She pauses long enough to slide a plate across the counter to me. Egg and cheese on a bagel, wrapped in paper towel. "Eat fast. Your mother's got an early court date."
As if on cue, Mom clicks down the stairs in heels that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. She's already in full lawyer mode—tailored gray suit, hair perfect, makeup that makes her look like she's ready to tear apart a hostile witness on the stand. At thirty-nine, she could pass for thirty, and trust me, I hear about it constantly at school.
"Morning, baby." She grabs her travel mug of coffee, doesn't sit down. She never sits down in the morning. "You have everything for today?"
"Yeah, Mom."
"Lunch money?"
"Yeah."
"That history paper you were working on?"
"Turned it in Friday."
She nods, distracted, already scrolling through her phone with her free hand. "Good. Good. I've got the Patterson deposition today, might run late. There's leftover pasta in the fridge for dinner."
"Marcus, I'll call you back." Granny ends her call and gives Mom a look. "You're taking on too much again, Rachel."
"It's my job, Mother."
"Your job is also being present for your son."
I stuff bagel in my mouth to avoid being part of this conversation. They have this argument about once a week, like clockwork.
Mom's jaw tightens. "I'm doing the best I can. Some of us don't have the luxury of—" She cuts herself off, glances at me, then back to Granny. "I have to go."
She's out the door before either of us can say anything else. The house feels quieter when she leaves, like someone turned down the volume on everything.
Granny sighs, pours herself more coffee. "Your mother works hard, Jhaeron. Don't take it personal."
"I don't." It's not even a lie. I'm used to it by now—Mom working late, Granny managing the dairy business, both of them too caught up in keeping everything running to worry much about me. It's fine. I get it. Bills don't pay themselves, and Granny's company employs half our neighborhood here in Westfield. We're only twenty minutes from Newark, close enough to New Jersey proper that Mom commutes in for the big cases.
"You need a ride to school?"
"Nah, I'll take the bus."
She nods, already back on her phone. I finish my bagel, grab my backpack, and head out into the October morning.
7:42 AM, Westfield High School
The bus dumps me at school with fifteen minutes before first bell. The building's the same as always—brick and concrete, built sometime in the eighties and never updated, smelling like industrial cleaner and teenage desperation. I keep my head down, headphones in even though I'm not playing music, just trying to look unapproachable.
It doesn't work.
"Yo, Halden!"
I don't have to look to know it's Marcus Chen and his crew. They're by the main entrance, same spot every morning, like predators at a watering hole.
I try to walk past. Marcus steps into my path.
"Dude, I'm talking to you." He's bigger than me—most people are—with the kind of build you get from actually playing sports instead of just reading about physics. His friends flank him: Tyler Kowalski, who thinks being a linebacker makes him important, and Jake Morrison, whose main personality trait is laughing at everything Marcus says.
"Hey, man." I keep my voice neutral, non-confrontational. Sometimes that helps.
"Your mom got Mr. Harrison off last week, right? The DUI case?"
My stomach drops. "I don't know, man. I don't really—"
"She did. My dad's a cop, he was pissed about it." Marcus grins, but there's nothing friendly in it. "Must be weird, having your mom get drunk drivers back on the road. Real hero work."
"She's a defense attorney. She just does her job."
"Yeah, and every dude in town knows how she looks doing it." Tyler snickers. "My brother saw her at some bar last month, said she was—"
I try to push past them. Marcus shoves me back, not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to remind me he could if he wanted to.
"Where you going, Halden? We're just talking about your hot-ass mom." Jake's laughing now too.
The first bell rings. Marcus lets me go with a shove that sends me stumbling into the door frame.
"See you around, Halden!"
I can hear them laughing as I head inside.
The day passes in its usual blur of monotony and low-grade humiliation. AP Calculus, where I'm the only one who does the homework. American History, where I sit in back and try to be invisible. Lunch in the library because the cafeteria's a war zone. Chemistry lab, where my partner spends the whole time on his phone while I do both our work.
In sixth period English, Ms. Rodriguez hands back our essays on "The Great Gatsby." I get a 98. The girl next to me sees the grade, rolls her eyes, and whispers something to her friend that makes them both laugh. I stuff the paper in my bag.
The final bell's almost enough to make me believe in God.
I'm at my locker, shoving books I don't need into a bag that's already too heavy, when Tyler appears out of nowhere and slams the locker shut. I jerk my hand back just in time to avoid losing fingers.
"Watch it, Halden."
He walks off like he did me a favor by not actually injuring me.
I lean my forehead against the cool metal of the locker door and breathe. Just breathe. It's the same thing every day—the comments, the shoves, the constant reminder that I don't matter except as a target. I've built up calluses against most of it. You have to, or you'd never survive.
But sometimes I wonder what it would be like if things were different. If I had someone in my corner. If I wasn't alone in this.
I think about my father sometimes. Not often, because it doesn't do any good, but sometimes. Mom won't talk about him. Granny changes the subject whenever I bring it up. All I know is he left before I was old enough to remember him, and whatever he did was bad enough that his name's basically forbidden in our house.
Would things be different if he'd stayed? Would I be different? Stronger, maybe. More confident. The kind of guy who doesn't get shoved around in hallways.
Probably not. Probably I'd still be exactly who I am: Jhaeron Halden, professional nobody, invisible except when someone needs a punching bag.
I grab my bag and head for the bus.
4:13 PM, Home
The house is empty when I get back. Granny's at the dairy plant—some issue with a distributor, I heard her talking about it this morning. Mom won't be home for hours, if at all. Big case means late nights, and the Patterson deposition's supposed to be brutal.
I drop my bag by the door, grab a soda from the fridge, and collapse on the couch. The TV drones in the background while I pull out my phone and scroll through nothing. Social media's just a highlight reel of people having better lives than me. I don't even know why I look at it.
The house is too quiet. I've gotten used to quiet—I live in quiet, exist in the empty spaces between other people's important lives—but some days it sits heavier than others.
I think about calling someone, but who? I don't have friends, not really. People at school tolerate me in group projects because I do the work. Teachers like me because I don't cause trouble. But friends? People who'd want to just hang out, talk about nothing, make me feel less alone?
Yeah, no.
My phone buzzes. It's a text from Mom: Going to be late. Order pizza if you want. Love you.
I text back a thumbs up and toss the phone aside.
Upstairs, in my room, I try to focus on homework but can't concentrate. My mind keeps drifting to the same tired questions. Why do I have to be like this? Why can't I just be normal? Why did my father leave, and would anything be different if he hadn't?
I stare at the ceiling until the light outside fades to full dark.
Eventually I heat up the leftover pasta Mom mentioned, eat it standing at the kitchen counter, and go to bed early because there's nothing else to do.
Tomorrow will be the same as today. And the day after that. And the day after that.
This is my life.
October 8th, 6:52 AM
The alarm goes off. I hit snooze once, twice, then force myself up on the third round.
Downstairs, the kitchen's in chaos. Granny's on the phone again, but her voice is different—sharper, worried. Mom's there too, which is weird. She's never home this early.
She's wearing yesterday's suit, rumpled, hair not perfect for once. She's got papers spread across the kitchen table, her laptop open, and she's staring at the screen like it personally wronged her.
"Mom?"
She doesn't look up. "Not now, Jhaeron."
"Is everything okay?"
"I said not now!"
Her voice cracks like a whip. I step back, stung.
Granny ends her call. "Rachel, don't take it out on the boy."
"I'm handling it, Mother." Mom's hands are shaking as she shuffles papers. "I just need to—there has to be something I missed, some precedent—"
"What happened?" I try again.
Mom finally looks at me, and for just a second, I see something in her eyes I've never seen before. Not anger. Not frustration.
Fear.
"The Patterson case. It's falling apart." She laughs, but it's bitter. "Six months of work, and it's just—"
She stops herself, shakes her head. "You need to get to school."
"But—"
"Go to school, Jhaeron!"
She grabs her keys, her bag, shoving things inside with jerky, too-fast movements. She's out the door before I can say anything else, leaving Granny and me standing in the wreckage of breakfast nobody ate.
"What's going on, Granny?"
She sighs, looks older than she did yesterday. "Your mother's under a lot of pressure, honey. That's all."
But I saw Mom's face. That wasn't just pressure.
That was something breaking.