...
It had been a while, maybe like three or four months since all that happened with Luke. And this day things got a little out of hand, to say the least.
Another dumb argument.... but well, rather than an argument, it had become a fight. It had started like always, a 'discussion' at the dining table. Then one started yelling. The other one started screaming. Eventually, he was grabbing and hitting her as they desperately threw things from the shelves at each other.
An throughout all that, I was hiding in the closet in my room silently sobbing to myself as I waited for it to be over.
After a while, I could tell just by the noise that my mother had started hiding places where he couldn't find or reach her, because he started calling out to her with a sweet voice, telling that he was 'sorry' and 'wanted to make things up' or whatever.
He eventually just got angrier and screamed even louder, threatening her now. I suddenly heard the front door open, and then slam.
Tears spilled like rivers from my eyes as a single, terrifying question flooded my brain: Had she left?
Had she left me?
Alone.
With Him?
I let out a loud sob and immediately covered my mouth, afraid that he would for me next, now that she had left.
But no, he goes outside and starts yelling out for her.
Not in a threatening way, but in the sweet 'honey, what happened? Come back!' way again.
A few seconds after he starts looking for her, he goes silent and suddenly, the door to my room opens.
What?
How could he have-?
"Alex!?"
It 's my mum.
I push the door of my closet and peek outside.
My mother sat on the floor with her back against the closed door. She was sobbing uncontrollably, there were cuts and bruises on her arms and legs, and she was shaking and trying hard to pull herself together.
I climb out of the closet and walk a few steps closer to her, but she just ignores me, and looks straight to the ground.
A few moments later, she stands up and just starts repeating: "We're leaving, we've got to leave" as she, in some kind of trance, starts pulling out bags and suitcases from the closet I was previously hiding in.
I helped her bring out my clothes and we silently packed my few, small belongings in a small suitcase. Once we finally finished, I started thinking about how she was gonna pack her things, but all she did was walk up to the door, and say with a shaky voice: "We're ready".
She opened the door of my room and stepped out, but at that moment, a hand grabbed her by the neck of her blouse.
He. Was. Right. There.
He quickly hit my mother in the head and yelled at her something that I couldn't understand. I heard my mother scream in pain as she fell to the floor and got cornered into a wall by Alan. With the suitcase still in my hands, I started backing down into the corner of the room, starting to hyperventilate. My mother immediately took note of that, and taking the opportunity that Alan was now far away from the door, she yelled:
"ALEXANDER, RUN!!"
I snap out of the fear creeping up on me and, still grabbing the suitcase, start running out into the hallway.
I tried to run as fast as I could, but the suitcase was still too heavy for me. So as soon as I reached the stairs, I dropped it, not caring if I was then and there losing all of my belongings. I just wanted to escape.
Now crying, I finally reach the entrance. The blurry mess of tears in my eyes and my shaking hands make it hard to open the door, but once I open it, I can't help but gasp at what I see...
The blinding brightness of red and blue lights shines onto the house. Two police cars pull over and I see a tall man quickly get out of one and run up to the door.
As overwhelming feelings start to fill me, I fall to the ground.
The noise of cops yelling and getting into the house, the loud sirens of the cars, and the bright lights coming from everywhere start fading away as I begin to feel dizzy. The last thing I remember is seeing a cop's blurry face asking me: "Kid?? Are you okay?". But I wasn't able to answer...
The remains of my memory of that day are just intervals of crying and being completely unaware of what was going on, to waking up and looking around in a state of confusion.
I remember one of the first things I saw when I woke up the first time, was a crowd of nosy neighbors around our house, wanting to know what happened. I remember I was being carried by whom I assume was a cop and I was wrapped up in a blanket. I looked around and saw my mother being carried in a stretcher into an ambulance, and I remember that scared me a lot.
Another time, I was inside a police car, I looked out the window, still seeing everything blurry, but i am sure that in between all the faces being illuminated, one stood out to me that I recognized.
Linda, she was there.
...I later found out that she was the one that called the cops that night, I really do think we owe her our lives...
I didn't specifically dream anything while I was unconscious, but I remember being really scared that my mum would die, and assumed that I would be immediately left with Alan, not realizing how utterly complicated things were gonna get, even though she didn't die...
So yeah, the next month was absolute hell for both me and my mother. She thankfully (or maybe not so) got out of the hospital quickly, and got tangled up in a mess with the court, because APPARENTLY, Alan had decided not to plead guilty, and claimed that what he was trying to do that night (and I guess trough all the years he had been married to my mum) was NOT attempted murder. Even though they did find a knife in his hand when they detained him in my room, where they also found him with my mother laying on the ground, unconscious.
But no, really, he wasn't trying to kill her, what are you talking about??
*sigh*
The weeks went on, with my mum clarifying the situation and dealing with the custody things. I don't ever remember much, and for various weeks, I barely had the chance to see my mother. She was stressed as ever, and was expected to be everywhere at once.
She soon found jobs, about three, all right after each other. It was obviously draining, but at least they helped her gain a lot of money...
One of my more vivid memories from that time is also spending entire days at police stations and courtroom waiting areas, not knowing if I'd ever actually see her again. But to be honest, in my mind it sometimes just appears as weird, emotionless, repressed memories that are hard to make sense of...
But, as time went on, she eventually managed to win the case, and Alan was sent to jail. I guess the evidence was just too much for him to be innocent...
It was also around that time that my mum was able to finally start paying rent at an apartment building in the area that we lived at, and we settled in, a little bit unsettled by the craziness in our lives leading up to that point.
This all about marks the point where we officially 'escaped' Alan, but little did we know that even though he was locked up away god knows where, he would still remain in our minds forever...
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But yeah, I-I may have gotten a little out of hand... It's nothing to be worried of, but- to make my point, I just didn't want a father, do you get WHY?
My mother was someone who I resented for a long time after all of that happened, and I was way too scared to even think about us being a family of three.
When she started dating Michael, the idea of me having a father again felt much more real, and I was afraid. Afraid of him.
But I wasn't going to show it!
The reason I let my anger towards my mum show more than anything else was because I thought that she had lost her mind by thinking that getting another man was a good idea...
And I guess she wasn't that wrong, was she?
Heh...