If irrelevant was a smell, that is what I would smell like. Soon as I walked into the house, the smell of irrelevancy comes out of me. I walk through the hallway and into the kitchen. I look around the kitchen. Mail and papers everywhere on the counter, bottles all over the floor and counter, fridge magnets on the floor, dishes in the sink, and food crumbs on the floor. I continue to look around the kitchen as disgust falls on my face. My eyes lock on my mother. Her back faces me but I can still see her features. A 5’3 Puerto Rican woman, with medium-length dark brown hair, and brown eyes. “Hi mom,” I say as I go around the counter to reach for a bag of chips. No answer. Nothing new, I thought to myself as I rolled my eyes. I go through another cabinet to look for some candy but then I hear loud footsteps. “Mommy mommy guess what?!” my little sister Amiya comes storming into the kitchen. She is 7 with long brown hair and brown eyes. I watch as she jumps up and down. She is wearing a pink shirt that says, “Unicorns Are Real,” and a plain white skirt, which were both covered in crayon marks. My mom turns around, “What happened sweetie?” she says. I look at my mother’s clothes. She had a plain black sweatsuit on. She was painting, which I did not realize before, but now I can since she was covered in paint. “Look what I drew,” Amiya says while shoving the paper in her face. The drawing didn’t consist of anything but a discombobulated tree colored in brown and terrible patchy grass that was green. “Oh wow this is so good, my mom says out loud in shock. Let me put it on the fridge,” she says as she pushes my two favorite magnets, that I bought with my own money, off the fridge to make space. It lands on the floor and makes a huge cracking sound. One survives while the other one breaks in half.

The one that survives is a magnet of a basketball player, Stephen Curry. The one that breaks in half was a magnet that said, “Be positive.” Which is something that has been hard to do lately. I look down on the floor and stare at the broken magnet. My mother starts to whistle as she hangs up Amiya’s drawing on the fridge. She turns around and rubs her hand through Amiya’s hair. “My little artist, just like mommy,” she says with a smile.  “Mom?” No answer. “Mom?” No answer. “MOM?!!” I say but even louder. She jumps in fright and turns in my direction. “You don’t have to yell,” she says while looking at me. I obviously did since you didn’t hear me the first couple of times, I thought to myself. “I got a 96 on my Calculus test,” I say with a smile. “Oh… That’s cool,” she says and turns around to continue painting. My smile fades. Amiya looks at me, “It’s great that you got a 96 on your test, but my drawing is more important.” She smiles and skips away to the living room.

I walk up the stairs and into my bedroom. I throw myself onto the bed and stare at the ceiling. I am not even shocked at what Amiya said. I know she didn’t mean it in a bad way too. Because in all honesty, it is the truth. And the truth hurts.