January 18th 2013
The call from my mom came to me at 12:12 am. My dad was sick.
In the still of the night, I made a short trip over to my parent's house, hair messy and eyes plagued with exhaustion. I didn't bother to brush it or to even splash a bit of water on my face to wake myself up. I just grabbed my house keys and left.
My friend Diindiisi dropped me off. I was too tired to drive, and I figured that with her help I could take a short nap on the way there. When I opened my eyes again, we were there. Diindiisi sat out in the car. I'd be quick, I didn't want to stay long.
On the way in I looked up at the house. Number 30 on the street, Christmas lights still lit up and twinkling. They were always hung up year-round. Ever since my dad had his back injury. There was a mushy, rotten pumpkin sitting on the porch covered in snow. I hesitated as I made my way to the door, peering in through one of the frost-covered windows to see If they were still awake. It was late. It was 12:24 am now.
My mom opened the door for me a couple of minutes after I rang the doorbell. She looked tired, almost as much as I was. I stepped in and she shut the heavy red door behind me, locking it. She didn't look me in the face until I spoke to her.
"Mom?" It was more of a question than a greeting, my voice rising at the end to indicate slight confusion. That made it like I was asking something. She locked eyes with me, but I couldn't hold her gaze, looking away as she wordlessly kept her eyes on my face.
I scrunched my nose up, wiping away some sleep from my eyes. Then she spoke.
"Your dad is upstairs. He'll be down in a minute. Come in." She told me. She walked ahead of me, through the rooms until we got to the living room. Slight nostalgia washed over me, good and bad. My mother and I never got along well. Whenever I said something she didn't know about, I was always wrong to her. She was angry. She was stressed. She took it out on me.
My dad wasn't much better, but he and I were much closer when I was growing up. Hearing that he was ill filled me with nerves. I didn't want to lose my dad. Not so soon. Not when there was so much time ahead.
"Shouldn't dad stay upstairs? I can go up-" I started to speak, but my mother interrupted.
"No, no. He'll be fine. Just..." She trailed off as she tried to look through the air, as if the words she wanted to say would appear before her like a teleprompter with a script plugged into it. "We haven't seen you for a while. How is... How is everything?"
"Uh... Well, I have a cat now." I tried to think of things, but suddenly it was like my mind was erased. "I uh... I met a guy. And I have a new... job." I said, avoiding looking her directly in the eyes.
"That's... That's nice, sweetheart." She replied. "Everything here has been fine until your dad got sick." She added. The lamp light in the corner flickered like a warning.
"You never called." She tells me, after a minute-long moment of quiet.
"Neither did you." I look up at her, locking eyes for the first time since I entered the house. Her face twisted into a look of offense. The air began to thicken with tension.
"I shouldn't have to," she said. she sounded like she was trying to keep her composure. "I pushed you out of me, the very least you can do is call." Her voice was starting to sound like it was full of venom. She spoke with the intention to kill.
"Please don't do this. Not right now." I closed my eyes, tilting my head down and turning away from her. I could feel her eyes burning into my head. She closed her mouth.
"Don't give me that bullshit, you're a grown-ass adult. Don't fucking act like a little girl." She replies, scoffing before she spoke. I lifted my eyebrows as I looked at her, feeling anger start to rise into the back of my throat.
"Maybe I wouldn't act like a little girl if I didn't have to take care of your drunk ass. I was ten, I shouldn't have had to act like a grown-ass woman because you weren't 'strong enough' to handle your boss yelling at you at work." I shouted at her, standing up and staring daggers into her eyes.
"Bullshit. I was the adult. I raised you, I fed you, I put a roof over your head. I... I-" She almost continued yelling back her response, but I stopped her, overlapping her voice with mine.
"Wow, thank you for the bare fucking minimum mom," I told her sarcastically. I was looking down at her, feeling white-hot rage seep into my flesh as I held a fist so tight i felt like my knuckles were poking out of my flesh.
"The 'bare minimum'?" She hissed, eyes widening and eyebrows lifting angrily. "Bull-fucking-shit! I didn't have to take care of you I-"
"Yes, the fuck you did! Yes, the fuck you did have to take care of me! I was... I am your child! Do you not get that? You legally had to take care of me, don't give me that fucking bullshit." I shouted. I felt the dreaded tears of hurt and anger start to well up in my eyes.
"Do you even like me?" I shouted, suddenly, causing my mom to lean back quickly and give me a shocked look. "Growing up I was always wrong. You always had to be right, and I always was just 'disrespectful'. Do you know how many of my fucking issues come from you? Do you know how many people I just let fucking walk all over me just because that's how you conditioned me to be?" I felt my eyes well up. I felt a lump grow in my throat. I felt all of my anger, frustration, sadness, and everything else I'd been trying to hold in come pouring out of me.
shit. shit. shit.
I didn't want to cry in front of her, not now. not right now.
fuck. fuck. fuck.
"Are you fucking crying?" She yelled, almost like she couldn't believe that this conversation-- this argument-- was upsetting enough for me to begin to cry. "You fucking baby. You-"
"I'm getting overwhelmed, I can't-" A frustrated whimper laced my words, voice shaking when I spoke at tears poured down."
"You fucking child, I can't believe you're fucking crying." She said, standing up and laughing at me, the sound of it laced with spite. She felt like she was winning. God, maybe she was. The crying made me feel like I was losing. Maybe I don't even want to win, I just...
"Shut the fuck up!" I screamed. A moment of silence followed that before she moved so quickly I didn't even register that she had hit me. I felt the sting of her hand against my cheek a few moments after her hand was at her side again, eyes widened in realization of what she had done.
"I'm going home," I said, voice quiet and pained in the way I spoke. "Don't text me. Don't fucking call me. Tell dad I hope he gets better soon."
With that, I rushed out of the door, not looking back. I slammed it behind me, and soon I was sitting next to Diindiisi again. I didn't feel tired anymore. I was just filled with emotional anguish. The slap kept replaying in my head. I couldn't believe that she had hit me. She has never hit me before. Not like this.
Diindiisi caught that I needed to ride in silence. We got back to my house quicker than it took for me to get to my parent's house. I mustered up the ability to say goodbye to her before I walked back inside as quickly as I could without slipping on the ice on my driveway. I tried to avoid looking at the broken Christmas lights that were still hanging up. I didn't have an excuse.
I just burst through the door, rushing up to my room. I rooted through my drawers, desperately trying to find something I had hidden away. On the drive back I remembered something that I had put away, keeping it 'just in case'.
I found it, a little wooden box that had only one thing in it.
I took it out, placing the tab of acid under my tongue before I could change my mind. I could hear the notifications on my phone go off twice before it fell silent again.
