By My Side

Ill

Later that night, around midnight, I suddenly find myself awake, choking on a thin clear substance caused by my sinus infection. I quickly dash to the rest room and begin guzzling water. This has happened to me before, I've actually had this infection for a week and a half now.

Now, at this point, most would call in sick, skip school, but me, I tried to go back to sleep, with a fear I may have to skip school.

I've always preferred school to home. At school, they only love the books, but at least they love something. My mother is a sociopathic woman with a horrible temper who cares only about herself. My father is a slightly grumpy, middle aged man with a balding head, who insults me at the start of each day, so regularly, I'm surprised when he doesn't.

They have never raised a hand to me or either of my brothers, but if they did, I'd probably snap. At least, if they don't break me first. The two seems to have an unholy obsession with stopping my writing. They degrade it, call me pathetic, sad, ground me from it, but I always write. I HAVE to write. It's the only reason I haven't just, stopped living. If I couldn't write, plain and simple, I would die. Not from suicide, but from a lack of a will to live.

I consider taking a day, as I regurgitate the gooey substance. Then I remember the things they've said to me and my brothers. I remember the rage, the hate, I feel for them. I refuse to stay. I can't stay. I would break.

How I wish, that this wasn't how it was, hiding my suffering, but, family is garbage. It's a bad joke with the only punch line being inheritance. I can only take refuge in two things.

1: My writing.

2: I believe in God. (Don't judge.)

These things give me strength, as I vomit a second time. I struggle to regain composure, and to stay as quiet as a mouse, as not to disturb the hellish beasts above me on the second floor of my house.

A tear streams down my face, and I look in the mirror.

"How easy it would be to give up," a voice in my head says, "to just break and die. Surrender Leo, you're not a good writer, and never will be."

For a second, I almost listen, I almost give up, but another voice speaks, "don't give up Leo. They win if you do. You have to survive, you have to keep going, to dance on their graves! Keep writing. You're not good yet, but you will be. Write!"

I know that I need to sleep.

"You should be writing," the voice whispers like a demon in my shoulder, "just one chapter, then we'll sleep."

Yes, just one. One more chapter before I slumber...

I end up writing two before the pain stops. Before I feel better,  but when I finish, I go back to sleep...