You Can't Break Her

Chapter sixteen: part three | January

January 2006
Bayhollow, Ontario

I got a message from my sister on a Wednesday to babysit for her friend the next night. It was her birthday and It was a welcomed escape from the house. I had been excessively moody as of late and once I told my parents I didn't want to live there anymore I started spending every free moment with Patrick. If I wasn't able to move out I would make it feel like I had.

My sister picked me up and we pulled into the driveway of a white house with brown shutters on the windows. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes before getting out of her silver Honda Civic. There were things going on between Patrick and I that I didn't wish to share but that still needed to be worked out. At the time there were only so many ways to get in contact with one another and I needed to talk to him to clarify.

My sister and her friends pre-drank and laughed about things I knew nothing about, while doing each other's hair and switching outfits randomly. The little boy I was watching was already asleep which worked out in my favour because I didn't know anything about putting a child to bed. They said they would be back late and left for the night.

I drank for a few hours and listened to So Sick by Neyo and Too Little, Too Late by Jojo. I had found messages the previous night between Patrick and some girl from a few towns over in his emails. I couldn't wrap my head around it. His reasoning when I confronted him didn't register and only fuelled my anger. I could see the lies and the loop holes clearly, but I had been so emotionally unstable and seeing everything in a linear way that I doubted my own judgement.

"You say you dream of my face/But you don't like me/You just like the chase to be real/It doesn't matter anyway/(You know it's just too little, too late)."

It was too late but not for him. I sat in the living room on the couch where blankets and a pillow were set up for me to sleep. I brought my hands to the roots of my hair and pulled it. It was too late for me.

"Let's make a baby," the words I had said to Patrick only a month ago. He agreed and now we waited. But the waiting was more telling then I knew, when my moods swung harder than a wrecking ball and my insides turned at the smell of lunch in the cafeteria, I knew. I sensed that something was different.

Here I sat in my sisters friends living room with an alcoholic drink in hand and my mind doing backflips over my choices. Luckily the little boy only woke up once and I was able to get him a bottle, my intoxicated state made me wobbly but not useless. He went back to bed and I sat in the same spot on the couch until my sister and her friend got home.

"Yeah and then he was like, oh I'll buy you a drink..." my sisters best friend looked back and said as she entered.

I stayed still on the couch and watched them come in and take off their shoes. My sister came to check that I was fine and her friend ran up to her sons bedroom to check on him.

"Did you had a good night? He's usually a good sleeper." She said when she saw me on the couch.

I had cleaned up my drinks and most of the evidence that I had been underage drinking while babysitting but I still couldn't process the last month and I wasn't looking forward to sleep and my minds interpretation of recent events. "Yeah, he only woke up once. He went down again after some milk."

She shifted her weight and grabbed the chair. "I'm going to sleep upstairs and I'll drive you to school in the morning."

The next morning I was relieved that my dreams had been the usual monsters and eerie games of hide and seek. I woke up with a major hangover and chugged a glass of water when I managed to get off the couch.

My sister dropped me off at school and I found my locker. The smells of deep fried food that wafted through the halls made me gag and the large groups of students made me nervous.

I shamed myself on the inside for drinking the night before but I needed a distraction, I needed distance from my thoughts and alcohol had always done that for me.