Underthink

Chapter Thirty Eight // The Failed Journey

I just want to change for her, for Leila.

I felt like everybody who passed me was staring like they knew what I was up to, I was extremely paranoid. I kept my head down and continued to walk until I reached the other side of town where the house I was headed to was located.

My head was lowered to the ground until I had crossed the road and was finally away from the busy crowds. I passed a group of people, not noticing their faces or who they were because I kept my head down..

A dog began to bark loudly in my direction, I began to walk faster before looking back and realising it was a police dog sitting beside a group of police men!

"Hey you! Stop right there!" One of them shouted as the dog tried to get closer to me, I put up my hood and made a run for it. The group of police men began to chase me, I knew I would never get away if they had a sniffer dog guiding them towards the smell of weed which was in my pocket.

I turned into a cramped alleyway and continued to run as fast as I could before I realised it was a dead end. I froze and stared at the blank wall before being pushed to the ground by a police man, they dug through my pockets and found the weed.

~~~~~~~~

I don't know what's worse, handcuffs or ropes against my wrists..

I sat patiently behind a window which looked out into a visiting area for friends and family of the criminals, I felt really odd being in prison. I knew I'd be in prison at one point in my life but I didn't see it happening until my late twenties.

Suddenly there was a loud bang as if someone had entered the room I was staring into, I sat in silence and waited for somebody to appear in front of me. A woman dressed in red with a huge hat on her head, overly used red lipstick and an evil grin sat down in front of me.. In other words it was my mother.

"I knew I'd find you here in time" She said before taking off her hat and fixing her hair, I stared at her in shock as I didn't expect to see her here. I know she is my emergency contact number but knowing her she wouldn't have gave a shit about me.

"Why are you here mum? I know you don't care" I said into the microphone in front of me, she laughed and nodded.

"You are completely right, I don't care about you at all but I needed to see you one last time before I leave" My mum said, this didn't phase me at all. I had already lost her, I already hated her more than anyone so I didn't care where she was going. I sat in silence waiting for her to continue.

"I never want you to get in contact with me again, do you understand? I want to forget about your existence, I'm going to forget that I ever had three sons. I am starting a new life" She explained with a smile on her face.

"How can you say that? Me, Ryan and Louis are your own blood, you are our mother!" I shouted angrily, she rolled her eyes at me.

"Because Dale, you are worthless.. You aren't a son to me, actually you're a mistake!" She yelled while stomping her feet under the desk which was in front of the window. I stared at her blankly trying not to cry at her harsh words, I knew she felt this way about me but I didn't think I'd ever hear it come out of her mouth.

"You're a waste of space, a piece of shit, a trouble maker-"

She went on and on for minutes about how much of a failure I was to her and how she practically wanted me dead...

~~~~~~~~~

Once upon a time we were actually a happy family, can you believe that?

There was me, my two little twin brothers Louis and Ryan then my mum and dad. We lived in a huge house because of dads job, he worked in the army. We all had great relationships with each other and back then I was properly happy, I didn't need to cause trouble to have a good time.

Until dad broke the news to us that he had to leave the country to go on a mission for a whole year in Paris, it was devastating. As soon as dad left my mum lost control, she was constantly paranoid that dad wasn't going to return home and that he was going to be killed. She turned to drinking to stop her from freaking out, which was all the time. Mum was constantly drunk which meant I had to look after my little brothers, they were only five years old at the time.

I was doing school exams at this point, I had so many things on my plate as well as taking care of my brothers. I had to make them their dinner every night, take them to school and read them bedtime stories because my mum would be throwing up in the bathroom all hours of the day.

This carried on the whole year which lead to me and my mum fighting more than ever, I would call her a terrible parent and tell her she didn't deserve to have children. She began to grow a hatred for me because Ryan and Louis depended on me more than her, it was like she was jealous.

The year passed and my dad came back from the army, we were so happy to see him. Once he found out what had happened while he was away he divorced my mum as soon as possible and took Ryan and Louis off her. She lost everything apart from me.

Dad, Ryan and Louis moved to Paris because my dad really seemed to like it when he was stationed there for a year. He also offered me to go and live with them too but I refused, I didn't want to leave all of my friends and life here in England.

When they left it was just me and mum in the house, her drinking was much worse than usual now that she wasn't married.

Lets put it this way, in school I was never bullied and I didn't know what being bullied was like until I came home from school and got attacked by my own mother about how I looked, how I 'ruined this family' and how she wanted me to disappear.

So I did, from her life. I moved into my grandparents house because they knew what she had been doing, they were extremely disappointed in their own daughter. They became the people I depended on most until they both passed away and I was left alone once again.

~~~~~~~~

"I'm not bailing you out" She said after five minutes of putting me down, I nodded and watched her leave knowing the last time I saw my own mother was in a prison where she told me to die and never speak to her again.

"Looks like I'm stuck here!" I shouted before laughing, the prison guard stared at me as if I was insane. And that's when I realised I had fucked up.

"Leila!"