Mommy's gone missing and didn't take
you with her. Ice cream falling off the cone onto the ground on a
hot summer day. Seeing the new toy in the store that mommy wouldn't
buy for fear of spoiling you. That mean kid kicking over your blocks
and he didn't get in trouble. Getting too much homework in the class
you hate. Going to bed at 10pm. Being grounded because you got a D
in a class. Your older brother hitting you for stealing his Game Boy
to play it without his permission. The pack of girls at school
laughing at you for your acne and as soon as you look at them they
try to stifle their giggles because they don't even have the decency
to laugh at you in your ugly face.
Mommy getting drunk and keeping you up
the night you have a test at school the following morning that you
need to pass or you fail the class. Being forced out the house to
play while mom and dad talk about how she overcharged the credit card
again and we're going to lose the house now.
Having to awkwardly talk to the police
about how mom got a bruise on her forehead and why dad is bleeding
from his hip while both parents try to guilt-trip you into believing
the other. Mom won't love you anymore if you don't believe her, dad
will leave if you don't believe him. Listening to the bile your
mother spew while she cleans up the house and how your father is the
cause of everything wrong in your life. Remaining silent out of fear
of getting the living Hell beaten out of you. Moving and losing all
your friends because your family couldn't keep things together.
Wanting to have your girlfriend over
but you're too ashamed of your family to introduce her, so you don't.
“How bad can your parents be?” she
asked.
“I just don't want to complicate
things.” you respond.
“Can't I sleep over once?”
“They'd make a scene.”
“Are they that unreasonable?”
“Hey, how about I meet your
parents?”
“Point taken, new subject.” Her
parents were worse and her father drunkenly knocked her from room to
room. Staring at her pale beautiful face tarnished with a bruise
below her ice-blue eye. Wanting to tell her things that will be
okay, but knowing your words will come across as naive and empty
because you don't know everything.
Being held down and stripped, and
stripped of your dignity and sense of safety. Not being able to tell
other people about it because you're just one social outcast afraid
of the entire network of assailants catching wind of it, and because
nobody would believe you as a result.
Your girlfriend growing concerned and
depressed. Becoming overwhelmed with embarrassment and shame at the
slightest sexual provocation. Wanting to talk to her about what your
intimacy fears stem from because you're not implying she's
unattractive, but you can't so she thinks that anyway.
“...I know I don't dress or see
myself particularly well.” she said.
“That... that's not it. That has
nothing to do with this.”
“You know how hard it is for me to
be assertive with these sorts of things.”
“Don't even get me started.”
“And when I finally want to, this is
what happens.”
“Well, I just...”
“Don't find me attractive?”
“No, dammit. It's not that, I said
it's not that.”
“...is there actually somebody else?
Somebody better?”
“What, NO.”
“Then where is this all coming
from?”
“I...”
“Something's happened and you're not
telling me.”
“Son of a bitch.”
Learning that she's been distant after
coping with the death of her mother and didn't bother telling you
until weeks after it happened. Not being able to tell her you're
hurt in a rational manner. Letting the situation escalate that much.
"...We're in trouble, aren't we?"
you ask.
"Probably."
"...I don't think we're going to
make it."
"...Probably."
Watching her walk into her house out
of your life and wanting to stop her but realizing you shouldn't.
"I'll see you around." you
say.
"Alright."
Lying on the bathroom floor after
throwing up and being incapable of getting up because of the vicodin
whiplash. Thinking how big of a fucking loser you must be that you
couldn't even kill yourself properly. Wondering how you can take
things this seriously at 16 years old as you lay sprawled out in a
daze. Having your mother come home and be none the wiser.
Nevermind, she noticed that some of the vicodin's gone missing and
that you should lie to your doctor to get more. Resentment at being
forced to move, despite not being able to rationalize why you'd want
to stay in the first place because of the personal Hell that was
created at that town, at that school. Well it was personal,
familiar, even if it wasn't necessarily safe.
Having your mom stop showing up to
work just because she felt like drinking and didn't bother calling in
so she loses her job and one anchor of stability again. She drinks
more. She calls you a fucking naive piece of shit and hurls a potted
plant at your head to get you to leave her alone. Your brother calls
the police, when she gets out of jail the following morning she walks
to somebody else's house to start drinking again and has her uncle
make violent threats on her own son for getting her arrested. She
comes home and stabilizes if only for a bit. She tries to run to
your cottage out back, and your boiling blood spills out for a
moment.
“What the fuck are you doing with
yourself? Look at what you're doing to us, to yourself. You're
going to fucking die if you keep doing this. Do you want to fucking
die?”
The quiet child finally turns and it
engulfs her own anger and stifles it, breaks her spirit. You move
out, you leave and that fire's set to burn without your intervention
anymore.
Wanting to go to college and be a
productive student, but being afraid to even walk into class if
you're a few minutes late. Sleeping in the car to pass time, and
inevitably drop out. Having a breakdown and being able to tell your
father for the first time that you have problems you need help with,
and two months after being put into the hospital for suicidal
ideations he tells you you're better off killing yourself. Your
boiling blood almost pours out completely.
“How did that even turn out?”
“He calmed down and apologized for
getting upset before I left the house.”
“And if he didn't?”
“I probably would've left to go
commit suicide.”
“...yeah?”
“I had it in my head planned out.
Get a bunch of over-the-counter meds and liquor, drive down to the
ravine, and wait until the cocktail takes me and I would've stopped
floating eventually.”
“Wel--”
“And that time it wouldn't have been
JUST out of apathy and wanting to die.”
“......yeah?”
“I wanted to spite him and ruin his
life.”
“...”
“End both of ours. Get the peace
and quiet I always wanted, and leave that massive disfigured scar on
him, hoping it never heals and that he'll pick at it enough that
it'll kill him too.”
“......”
“And I don't think I can ever tell
him that. That things will probably never be okay between us for it.
I don't ever want the capacity to feel, to think that way again. I
probably should tell him that. But I don't think I will.”
In his hands, it was the urge to do
what matters most but the inability to regret or cope with the fact
that he couldn't.
