Sticks And Stones

Awaken

I felt completely and utterly numb.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Sirens were going off behind me but I barely noticed them. I hugged the blanket around me tightly; like maybe if I held it close enough, I'd wake up laying in my bed watching my dad tuck me in.

Two paramedics came out of the house pushing a body with a cover over it on a gurney. I shook my head slowly-as if this action would somehow make all of this go away. 

"No! I cried, "Please! Mom, you can't leave me too! I'll have no one! Please don't leave me alone!" Four strong arms held me back from running to my mom. After what felt like hours of pushing and pulling away from them, my legs finally gave out and I crumpled onto the wet gravel and sobbed.

All the what ifs and the I should've's played over and over in my head as I played back all that had happened that day.

Flashback

I woke up gasping. All I could think about was Air. Air, air, air, I repeated over and over in my head but it wasn't enough. I was doing everything I could to feel that wonderful sensation of air passing through my lungs again but nothing came. I was wheezing and holding my throat until, slowly, the air returned to my lungs like a flood gate of joyful noise after a century of longing for it and I fell utterly relieved. 

I realized I had never really wanted to die. Maybe that was my excuse- like I was too prideful to admit my defeat- even though I knew I had lost the war ages ago, but the battles just kept coming.

I had never given much thought as to how I would die. When I was a child I thought with no doubt in my mind that it was absolutely impossible for someone I love to die. Because when I love someone, they're the universe. They become the gravity holding my body to this earth. Like my entire being was made just for that one person. I thought there was absolutely no possible way for something so strong and absolute to just... Disappear. But that was before. Before everyone I loved left me. Even my mom. Technically, she's not dead, but my mom? She's the hollow depths of a broken china doll- It may be the same texture, look and appearence of what it once was,but even after being glued back together, it'll never really be the same, you know? Loss after loss, she cracked a little each time. Until Brenton. That's when she broke. That was when every cell that made up who she was-every fiber of her being-vanished into thin air. And this monster was created in its place. ...Sometimes glue isn't strong enough to hold us together so alcohol and pills suffice. When this all had started, I truly thought she had been possessed. It made more sense than this.

Each bone in my body ached with every little movement I made. The bruises that felt like the end of the world just yesterday felt a million times less prominent compared to the feeling that my whole body was slowly and painfully being scorched by the burning flames of what was my mothers rage. A scream nearly escaped my lips when the pain of my broken arm shot through my body once again. Feeling confused and not knowing exactly what to do with myself or how, I tried my best to stand up but found it immensely difficult. I dragged my body towards the mirror and stared intently at my reflection. I knew I couldn't go to school even if I put on six tons of makeup. But... I wanted to stay home even less so I slipped on a hoodie and, still wearing the same clothes as the day before, I climbed out the window away from my mother.

**************

Nostalgia filled the air around me. Everywhere I looked held a memory I had- good and bad. Then, I noticed the big glass bank that held the worst memory of them all. A lump raised in my throat as I relived it, thinking back to my happy family. 

We were the cliché kind. My mother, a stay at home mom, would help us with homework, comfort us when we were sad, and relax with Brenton and me when my dad wasn't home. Everyday when my father came home, he would kiss us all on the cheek and we would sit down to eat dinner like the happy family we were.