-New York, The Bronx-

You've been living with your stepmother ever since your dad died a few years ago. It wasn't the worst situation: you had a roof over your head and food to eat. But most of the time it felt like she didn’t really care if you came home or not… It's not like she disliked you or anything, it's just that she kind of forgot about you in general. To be fair, you weren’t her kid. You were just the child of her deceased husband...

The two of you lived together in a crummy little two bedroom apartment in the Bronx. The rent was cheap, and it had a small little balcony off the kitchen that had a pretty nice view of the surrounding area. The place was pretty dirty most of the time because she wasn't much for cleaning. But then again she wasn't too much for anything besides sleeping, watching TV, drinking, or smoking… Despite the fact that she was nearly 43 years old and had a full time job, along with a teenager she had to take care of.

-Apartment Building, Night Time-

It was currently starting to get dark out as you sat in your room doing homework for school. You were 17 years old and were preparing to graduate in a few months... When you finally did, you were hopefully going to get accepted into a college so you could go and live on your own. You were already pretty self-sufficient since you pretty much did everything around the house, besides paying the rent, of course.

Just as you were starting to finish up on your homework, you heard the distant sound of the front door opening and closing. Signaling to you the fact that your stepmother was finally home from work... After a couple more minutes of doing your homework, you finished up and put it away before exiting your room. You then walked down the hallway into the living room/kitchen... Finding your stepmother sitting on the couch with a cigarette in her hand and her feet up on the coffee table.

Stepmom: "Oh, hey..."

She didn't even turn her head to look at you as she took another drag from her cigarette and continued to watch television... You looked her up and down, taking in her appearance. She was wearing a light grey sleeveless dress shirt and a dark blue pencil skirt. She had her dark bluish gray hair tied back in a messy bun, and her makeup was a little smudged after a long day of working in an office...

You walked into the kitchen area and opened up the fridge. You grabbed one of the many beers from inside, before closing the door and then walking back over and taking a seat on the couch next to your stepmother… Even though you weren't really old enough to drink, she really didn't care if you did or not. As long as you didn't drink all her beer, she was fine with basically whatever... She took another puff of her cigarette before looking at you and speaking.

Stepmom: "Get me one of those too, will ya?..."

She asked with a slight smirk on her face as you reluctantly got up from the couch and walked back into the kitchen to get her a beer from the fridge... After grabbing one, you walked back over and took a seat next to her once again before handing her her alcoholic beverage. She gave you a small nod of appreciation before turning her head back towards the TV and opening her beer with one hand... She took a long sip before swallowing and then taking another drag of her cigarette as you sat there next to each other in a comfortable silence.