Seven Minutes From Heaven [bxb]

Chapter 22 - Pill Poppers

Mum's car was in the driveway when I got home from school, so I was relieved so see she had come home from work early. It meant that I could talk to her about camp this weekend and try to make plans as soon as possible. And if necessary, then to apologise to her and earn my phone back. It'd barely been a day, but I really missed being able to talk to my dad.

"Mum?" I called out as I came through the door. Her music was blaring loudly from her bedroom. I raced upstairs and dumped my bag on my bed before knocking on her door to get her attention. "Mum!" I tried again.

She still didn't appear to hear me, so I opened her door and poked my head through. Normally she'd be sitting in bed on her laptop, but I could see movement through her partially open ensuite door. She looked to be dressed in her white gown, rifling through her mirror cupboards. The music was loud, but I didn't want to disrespect her by turning it down so I figured I'd just get her attention by calling out.

"Mum," I called again. It was strange that she couldn't seem to hear me, but she was making an awful lot of ruckus in her ensuite.

I pulled the sliding door slightly and saw the entire back of her reaching for a small pill bottle and pouring a heap into her violently shaky hand. She threw her head back and tossed them down her throat without any liquid, then she slammed the bottle onto the sink, sighed, and rested her weight against it. She appeared to take a couple of breaths to calm herself before closing her mirror. She startled as I appeared in the reflection before her, but I was equally started by a ghost-like woman looking at me through the mirror.

She shot around to face me, and I immediately saw how pale she appeared. Her lips looked cracked and almost a purple colour, while her eyes and cheeks appeared sunken. She stared at me as she clutched her chest, then her eyes widened as she glanced down at her makeup bag on the sink behind her. She turned to look in the mirror, as if noticing the way she looked for the first time. She turned back slowly to look at me and sighed deeply with defeat.

"Why did you come in here, Jude?" she asked, walking over to her stereo so she could switch off the loud music. Silence fell between us.

She stood with her eyes closed and massaged her head, before opening them up slowly again to look at me. Her features looked so dark and sunken that I didn't understand how I hadn't noticed before. Did she always look like this and was I always so oblivious?

"Mum," I started, backing away slightly as I didn't quite know how to process this woman standing in front of me. "Why do you look like that?"

"I just rubbed off my makeup, Jude," she said, rubbing her cheeks with a tired and defeated expression. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

She looked... sick.

"You just took medicine," I said, staring at the bottle she left on the sink.

"Is that a crime?" she asked, glaring at me. "Last time I checked, it's legal."

"You hate medicine!" I yelled, feeling increasingly frustrated by her secretiveness and hypocrisy. "How bad does something need to be for you to take medicine?"

"I just have a headache is all," she snapped.

"You don't even like me taking medicine!" I yelled. "Why the hell are you taking it? What the hell is wrong with you?"

Mum marched towards me and slapped me hard on the same cheek as she did this morning. The sting reverberated throughout my body and left me trembling.

"Shut up and get out of my room," she said, voice low and threatening. "Watch your filthy mouth when you know all too well that God is watching. Waiting for you to mess up so he can cast you straight into the depths of hell. Is that what you're hoping for? Keep going then. "