{2} Bloody Bandages and Boys Bathrooms
My mouth went dry as I took in the multi-colored Toyota sitting in my sorry excuse for a driveway. She was supposed to have been gone already. Panic started to course through me, my stomach constricting painfully as acidic bile attempted to force its way up my throat causing me to gag as it burned the back of my mouth. I immediately wished that I had somewhere else to go, but pushed the thought of fleeing from my mind as I forced myself to almost tiptoe through the decaying yard, which consisted more of dirt, beer cans, and cigarette butts, then of the lush grass and pretty flower beds we'd had when I was a child. My body trembled the second my feet hit the old wooden steps that led to the decaying house. The front door had at one point been a lively shade of red, painted to stand out against the once stark white house, now the siding was a tainted muddy brown, the door a rusted orange color with large dents and cracks in the wood from my mother's 'friends' trying to make their way into the house.
Pushing the images of the once beautiful home out of my mind I set my hand on the knob. The door let out a soft creak as I slowly pushed it open. A sound that was so trivial most people even in the dead of night wouldn't hear it, and yet here it was the equivalent of a bomb being dropped in the living room. "Bryson Allen Lewis, get in here!" My mother's screech boomed through the quiet house, her words were slurred even though it was only four in the afternoon. She was looking for a fight, and by being late I had given her the perfect excuse to pick one. Stashing my bag under the small table that sat just inside the entryway I quickly made my way to the kitchen in a useless attempt to keep my mother's anger from boiling over.
She wasn't hard to find, she leaned against the counter on the opposite side of the entryway, probably for support, a glass of what reeked like rum and coke held tightly in her left hand. Her clothes were risqué, a tight dress leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination and putting parts of her body, that I being her son should never see, on display. Her shoes were death traps, deadly stiletto heels that made her short frame appear taller than it truly was. Her caramel hair, which had at one point matched my own was knotted and greasy, pulled back in a sloppy bun and her once delicate face was caked with makeup to hide her rapid aging due to both substance abuse and her prick of a boyfriend who likes to beat on her and pass her off to his friends.
"Where the hell have you been?" She demanded, her unfocused eyes roaming over me.
"School Ma'am," I answered respectfully, hoping, even in vain that I could somehow come out of this escalating altercation unscathed.
"They still let your worthless ass go there?" She cackled in disbelief, not noticing me flinch at her cruel words. "I thought they would kick your pathetic ass out by now." I remained silent, knowing she was throwing insults looking for me to get worked up. Years of repetition had taught me not to take the bait.
"Come now Camille," A new voice spoke causing shivers of fear to race up my spine. "Leave the boy alone. He obviously knows who to sleep with so he isn't kicked out."
I clenched my jaw, my teeth audibly grinding together to keep from disputing his claims that I had to sleep around to graduate. I hated standing here day in and day out being talked down too and treated like a whore. I was degraded publicly and privately. You deserve it. The little voice in the back of my head taunted wickedly. I knew I did, but the pain didn't lessen any because of it. "I am talking to you!" My mother's shout only managed to knock me out of my thoughts in time for me to look up in time for the back of her ringed hand to meet my cheek. I hissed in pain as the crude metal easily cut the already tender flesh. Not having expected the blow I lost my balance my arms flailing uselessly, hoping to grasp onto something to catch me before I toppled backward. My hand knocked into my mother's alcohol filled glass seconds before my head smacked against the side of the kitchen island, and then the tiled floor. The glass fell to the floor, shattering upon impact, the dark liquid splashed onto my mother's heels before running down her feet and pooling amongst the rubble on the floor. Chipped ice cubes skirted across the floor noisily. My heart and breathing stopped as I watched my mother's face contort from simple annoyance to anger, then finally settling on boiling rage.
YOU ARE READING
Finding Happiness {BxB}
General Fiction"THE SOURCE OF ALL HUMAN SUFFERING IS ISOLATION" He was the definition of freedom, from the way he leaned against the lockers staring security in the eye as he lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in their faces. He was dangerous, the way we me...
