Love Is A Losing Game

2| Thirty never looked so bad.

"Might as well be. Happy birthday, Tommy!" My best friend, Larissa yells causing me to flinch at the noise.

"Are you seriously going to keep us standing outside in this heat?" My grandma yells from behind my aunts and brothers.

With a sigh, I step aside and let the large group enter my house. They immediately become at home once their inside as they occupy different parts of my house.

"Tommy, what the hell happened to the food in your fridge?" My mother yells from the kitchen. "Or the food in general," my aunt mumbled as I entered my kitchen.

"What the hell happened to your hair, dear?" My mother stopped raiding my kitchen to examine my hairdo. "Cut it off," was my explanation. "Yeah, no shit, Tommy. Why is the question," she grabbed both sides of my face and shook my head side to side.

I gently removed her hands from my face. "It was too long," I walked over to the pantry and revealed all the food to the ladies in the kitchen.

"Too long? Then why didn't you just cut it to the middle of your back, not to your shoulders!" She followed into the pantry.

"Because I wanted my hair to be short," I sighed deeply. "I don't want to look like I did when I was with Fred."

That statement shut my mother up. My family was all over you and your life but they walked on eggshells when it came to my failed marriage.

"I'm sorry, honey," I shook my head at her apology. "It's fine. I'm fine," I said but I was lying about being fine. I haven't been fine since Fredrick first hit me.

"So, what are we making?" My mother smiled at my question. "Your favourite," she said. "There's no lamp in the fridge and there's no mayonnaise as well as cabbage and beetroot," I told her.

"Well then, take Jessie and Larissa, and go buy those things. You're aunts and I, along with grandma will bake your cake while your out," she pushed me towards the door.

"Okay, okay. I'm going just stop pushing me," she chuckled and headed back to the kitchen. "Perfect, now we can have you all to ourselves," Jessie, my other best friend, said.

"We're going to the grocery store and coming back. That's it," I said as I grabbed my car keys in the bowl.

"Yeah say that with a wink at the end," Larissa said with a naughty smirk. With a deep sighed, I entered the car and buckled my seatbelt before starting up the engine.

"Why don't we go to the mall? The grocery stores there have everything, plus we might need a lot of booze. All your aunts are there," Larissa slyly stated.

"You've got a great point but no. We're going to the nearest one," I stopped at a red light.

"Tommy, you don't laugh anymore," Jessie stated out of the blue. "There's nothing comical enough to laugh at or about," I shrugged as I hit the gas when the light turned green.

"But you don't smile either. Not even a fake smile," Larissa added. "Because my face hurts too much when I fake smile so I gave up," I said.

"You barely even smile at your mother," she retorted and I sighed deeply as I pulled into a parking space. I turned to her with a stoic expression. "If I lift my shirt up you will see a scar which I got from being stabbed. And to make matters worse, I was pregnant when I got stabbed. So forgive me if I'm not as lively as I used to be because Fredrick took away so much from me," I calmly stated.

Silence fell upon us and I felt a little bad for taking that out on them. They didn't know because I never told them. The only explanation my friends and family got when Fredrick and I divorced was that he beat the living crap out of me and cheated on me. I never went into detail because I didn't like talking about it, that's why therapy never worked out for me.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have taken that out on you," I started but Larissa put her hand on my upper arm. "We're sorry. You don't need to apologize."

Feeling a little awkward I forced myself to smile a little. "Let's go get some booze and get wasted tonight," I said and that caused a wide grin to appear on her face.

We headed into the store to pick out the food. We split up and decided to meet back at the candy section because that's Jessie's favourite section in the store.

I headed straight to the booze while Larissa was at the meat and Jessica at the vegetables.

Picking out only the finest wine bottles without exception, knowing I was prepared to get shitfaced with my aunts and friends.

Feeling content with eight bottles of expensive wine I head towards the vodka and tequila. Picking up two bottles of vodka I'm startled by a familiar voice.

"Must be a special night, huh?" I knew that voice. I loathed it even. It was the voice that belonged to the one who created this cold, heartless Tommy.

"Fredrick."