Fighting For Life (published)

My life is a joke

Aubry's POV-

The few days without Aiden at the gym went by slowly, painfully slow. Don't get me wrong, the boys were funny and crazy and I really liked them... but they were soft. They don't treat me like a fighter, they treat me like a little girl who got the shit knocked out of her. I didn't blame them... that's what I was, what I looked like at least. Aiden didn't treat me like that though, he pushed me to be better and trained me as if I was a warrior. I needed that.

I hadn't really learned anything after the day Aiden left. They were trying to take credit for teaching me how to get pissed off, but I was pretty much always pissed off. I pretty much always felt like I could take someone's head off. I had so many things in my life to be angry about, it was easy to let that take over.

It was Thursday afternoon, the actual day of Thanksgiving, I was pretty surprised that they had even agreed to training me on the day of the holiday. We just had to end it a bit early that day for them to go be with their families. Although Tommy seemed to really hate his stepmom, and didn't want to go be with her and her family. I agreed that we needed to call it quits and made up some lie about needing to get home to my family as well. Truthfully, all I would be doing was walking around aimlessly while waiting for Aiden to get home to really continue training me the next day.

My life was a complete joke. I was excited for a boy who wasn't even my friend to get home from celebrating with his family. I was making up a fake family with a fake home to fake celebrate a holiday that I had never even celebrated before in my life.

In reality, all I was going to be doing that night was trying to find a warm enough spot to rest for a few hours. I didn't even know if I was going to be eating that night, much less having a traditional thanksgiving meal surrounded by loved ones. My whole life was a joke... it always had been.

I needed to accept that... I needed to accept that I was simply a messed up joke that someone cruel liked to keep alive purely for amusement. I needed to lose the stupid hope that I always kept burning in my chest somehow, no matter what awful things happened to me. I kept my hope alive through Kelsey, and she let me down. I kept my hope alive through Demetri, and I messed that up terribly. And then... I kept my hope alive through Aiden. I needed to realize that Aiden didn't give a shit about me either... just like everyone else in the world. I was a joke to everyone, and no matter what I did... I apparently didn't deserve anything more than that.

As I walked around, letting my tired feet guide me to wherever they wanted to take me, I wondered about death. I wondered how much worse hell could have been compared to the life that I was living. I wondered what the point in living even was.

I just had a few more months... just a few more months. That used to bring me so much comfort before, I had always heard my sister chanting it to herself as well when she was raising me. However, at that point, it just gave me anxiety and fear. Because right then, I wasn't sure what those few months had in store for me or if I'd survive at the end of those months.

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I knew that I had to have been walking around for hours judging by the sun setting and my feet killing me. I stopped abruptly when I realized where my subconscious mind had led me. I wanted to laugh, curse, and cry when I looked at the cute little part that I had ended up in. It was a nice place on the decent side of town. It was usually bustling with people. Though there was no one there right then, everyone else was probably preoccupied with spending time with their loved ones.

My body had decided before my mind had, to sit down... I found myself on green bench near the swings. From there, I could practically see the whole park. The place brought back too many memories for me.

It was where my sister and I would play when we were young. We stumbled upon it when we were too young to be out by ourselves, but yet we were. It was also where she left me sometimes when she got older, and I was still young enough to be considered a kid. On the days that I was especially annoying she'd leave me there for hours upon hours while she went off and did whatever it was that she did. I never knew where she went during those times, but I always had my fun then we'd leave right at dusk. She never once forgot me or made me walk home alone. She always came back to get me.

The park was pretty far from our house. It was far away from all of our problems. That was part of its charm.

I could still remember the last time that my sister and I had visited it... it had been the first time that I really understood all the stress that my sister was under. I was about to turn eleven and the air was very cold; it had been Christmas break. I was cooped up in the house all break long by the rain and sleet, but that day the moisture had finally relented and I convinced my sister to take me out. She was fifteen and was way too cool for me, but she reluctantly agreed. She wanted to get out of the house just as much as I had because my dad was in one of his moods. Of course, he was constantly in one of his moods.

My sister walked with me to the playground and I ran off with my childhood innocence. It had been an hour of pure joy on that playground for me. I really wanted Kelsey to come join in on the joy, I wanted her to be happy too since she seemed to be sad all of the time. So with that in mind, I ran up to where Kelsey had been sitting, but that was when I saw Sunny talking to her. He had run his hands up and down her body so greedily that even at ten I was able to deduct that it was bad. My sister was so upset, but she didn't dare move from his grip. She just stood there and held her tears back.

I observed the scene, I was unsure of what to make from it being so young. However, when Sunny let her go roughly, making her fall to the ground, and kicked her in the stomach before walking away, I knew that I had to start helping her.

That was the moment that I stopped being a kid. I mean, I already had a pretty crappy life with so much trauma built up, but I was still able to have fun and be free. Before that moment, I had been so naïve and blind, I knew that we had both been getting hit, both been forced to take on roles that children shouldn't have to, and both been robbed of our childhood. But in that moment, as I comforted my broken-down sister, I knew that I needed to grow up. My sister needed someone to protect her. She didn't need someone to take care of, she needed some one to take the hits and be the buffer. That was the moment that I knew I had to be strong for the two of us. I needed to be her protector.

I felt the tears begin to fall down my cheeks as I sat on the bench in the unoccupied park. Thinking of Kelsey always did that to me. I didn't understand... I had done everything that I could to make it up to her for ruining her childhood, and apparently that still hadn't been enough for her. I always made sure to be extra good for her, I made my own dinner as soon as I was able to, I kept real quiet and learned to be silent to be sure that I didn't wake up Dad or anyone else. Plus, when we got older... I took a lot of the hits for her, I constantly covered for her when she was out, even to my own detriment, And after that day in the park... I never let her deal with sunny on her own ever again if I could have helped it. Sometimes, even when I much too young to do it, I went and got the drugs for dad when he tried to force her to go get them instead of going for himself. Everything that I did was apparently all in vain though.

I tried to be the best that I could be. I did as much as I could and it was never enough. Nothing that I ever did was ever going to be enough... not for Kelsey, not for my dad, not for Demetri, and especially not for Aiden. I was a joke. My whole life was a joke and I had turned into a broken little girl because of it.

A/N-
I'm trying to get a little more of their backgrounds in here before the story gets too far along. Soooo I hope you like it! Aiden's is coming up! ❤️👍
Comment vote and share please!!!
-KAF