It's always been so funny to me how life never turns out the way we plan it. When we're kids we want to be cops, firefighters, astronauts; maybe even the occasional rocket scientist. At the time we truly believed that we would be something great. We all believed that whatever life had in store we wouldn't be afraid, and we would face it. No one would've guessed our great and cheerful quarterback would go to a party one night and never come home, only for his mother to learn he made the fateful decision to get behind the wheel when he had four too many drinks; or when one of the smartest girls in the school would experience something so horrific in her life her only option was to take her own life in the middle of the night. Even I couldn't even guess that one day my only best friend would decide it would be safe to walk on to a frozen pond in early spring; only to be found a few months later, still wearing her pink fuzzy slippers.
They always say, "Your first is the worst.", and they were not wrong. I may have only been a child when I lost my stepfather in a car accident when I was a baby, but the most traumatic things seem to leave the biggest imprint on your life, no matter how small one is.
My entire life had been surrounded by death. My friends, my peers, and my family. So it seems only fitting to see where the path of my future laid its way.
Before I even knew what my future was about the throw before me, my life was relatively normal. It wasn't your typical cereal for breakfast or your mom says "I love you" before you head out to school normal, but it was my normal. Kind of, sort of, not really.
The last day before everything went to shit, I got ready for school, made of a cup of coffee, and locked the door behind me, ready to face my consequences for cheating on the last math exam. I passed my landlord on the way down, where he gave me his usual slimy grin which always made my skin crawl.
"Your mom in today?" he hinted.
I rolled my eyes and gave him a glare. "Watch yourself there Pete, I wouldn't want you to think she only she only has eyes for a grease ball such as yourself."
He returned my glare and began making his way toward me until we stood face to face. "You know what she told me once?" he smirked, "she couldn't give less of a shit about you, she never wanted you, you do know that right?"
My nostrils flared. Of course, I knew that. I didn't want her as a mother either, but here we were. A nothing mother raising a nothing daughter.
"And you know what she told me?" I raised my hand a put my thumb and index very, very close to each other in front of his dirty face.
His throat let out a small growl, which let me know it was my time to leave. I smiled and walked away making sure to repeat my gesture before the door shut behind me.
I hoped on the first city bus on my route, along with a young girl and her father. He wiped of the seat before she sat down, and made sure she was okay before sitting down beside her. The entire ride he told her stories and they laughed. I could feel the corners of my mouth turning upwards, and a small spark of jealousy burn in my stomach.
I never knew much about my real dad. My mother has always told me the same story. They dated for a while, she got pregnant, and he left. She never saw him again. Sometimes she excuses it, saying her doesn't blame him, followed by a "he was so young, he could never be a good dad; a real dad." The real shocker was she could never be a good mom either, she never was.
When I was young I always imagined having this amazing father. Every night I would look out my shitty bedroom window and wonder what he was doing. Was he fighting the bad guys? Rescuing damsels in distress? I always dreamed of my dad, a hero, one day finding me and coming to rescue me from my miserable life, but of course he never came. Perhaps he was just too busy being some other little girl's hero.
As I grew up, that fantasy faded; quickly. I learned to face the harsh realities of life and accepted that no one would ever come to save me. It was always only me, and I assumed that was how it would always be.
Every once in a while, when my mom was drugged out on the sofa or so drunk she didn't know how to lie, I would ask what he was like. What did he do? What did he like? What was he like? She always said the same thing.
"You have the same eyes."
Every time she said that her mind seemed to go somewhere else. Maybe it was a glimpse of a memory of him, or a wonder of what he was doing now, or even where he was.
It was quite clear we had the same eyes, considering hers were a bright blue and mine were a deeper hazel. Even our hair was different. She was blonde and I was a dark brunette. Other than that I got mostly everything else from her; from her button nose to the lonely dimple on my right cheek.
She would always tease me about us being sisters, which of course was for to feel so much younger than her youthful age of 36. No matter how old she got, the only thing she cared about was her youth. The only thing was wasn't alike besides our eyes and hair, were our personalities. My mom couldn't care less about how people felt and she did not possess an ounce of any empathy for anyone besides me, and I didn't even believe that. I loved to read, she loved to dance, I loved to stay up all night and watch the stars, she loved to party under them. Most ironically, she did not believe in the afterlife or anything paranormal whatsoever.
Then there was my stepfather. I always remembered he was just a ray of sunshine. Maybe that's because his name was Ray, or because he just decided to live up to his name. He is the only reason I have a few good memories of my childhood. He put my mom on the straight and narrow, and he helped raise me. He truly was a good man, and maybe that's why he had to leave us so soon.
When I was younger, he used to take me downtown late at night and drive around the city. We played his favourite music, and sometimes mine; even if it was music for a four year old. One specific July night, we were driving around downtown as usual. He was singing, I was looking out the window. That was when I dropped my blankie. I started crying of course, begging for Ray to grab my blanket for me which caused him to look back and try to drive and find a dark grey blanket in the dark.
It all happened so fast. I remember a red light passing over the top of the car, the honk of an angry car, and then deafening crash. When I opened my eyes, my hair was dangling above my head, and Rays lifeless arms dangled above his. A dark fluid ran down from his head down his arm, and onto the ceiling of the car. I was too young to understand what that dark fluid was.
My mother was never the same after that crash. It only took her 48 hours to turn back to her old ways. That's when the abuse started. She blamed me for his death, which of course was what I believed I deserved. If I hadn't been so clumsy and dropped my blanket we would still be a happy family of three. The scars on my arms and legs weren't from myself but from her. As I grew up I became her personal punching bag. When she was sad, it was my fault, when she was lonely it was my fault, and when a man used her and left, it was my fault. Everything bad that ever happened to her, it was my fault.
I got off the bus, making sure to take another look at the happy father and daughter once more before they disappeared into the Phoenix morning traffic. My next bus had arrived on time. I went to grab my bus card from my pocket, but it wasn't in there. Panic immediately set in as I searched my backpack and all my other pockets. Then I remembered I didn't put it in my pocket, I placed it on the seat beside me when I was so focused on the small family on the bus. So much for reminiscing.
I thought about telling the driver I had lost my card and that I had no change, which was the truth. However, it has happened many times before when I was too broke to afford a new pass, and I had already had this driver multiple times before. There was no way he was going to let me on. I guess I cried wolf one too many times.
I sighed and decided to walk home. It's not like there was anything remotely exciting waiting for me at school today anyway.
When I finally got home, it had been 2 hours. The heat, the traffic, the sounds of the city had basically drained me for an entire week. I just wanted to go to bed, but what waited behind my front door for me was the start of something never going to let me sleep peacefully for a long time.
I unlocked the door and was immediately greeted with the stench of sweat and booze. When I left, the front entrance to the apartment was clean, but now two empty bottles of vodka were spilt across the hallway, and any photo or decoration hanging on the wall was now in pieces, soaked in alcohol. A familiar sob echoed in the small apartment, however these particular cries seemed far more sorrowful than the usual.
I crept around the corner and found my mother hunched over and curled up in a little ball in the middle of the living room. Across the floor lay more broken glass, another bottle of booze (this time sitting in her right hand), and unfamiliar papers scattered around her. She was still wearing her party clothes that I saw her leave two days ago in, except her left bright pink stiletto heel was broken, and her dress was covered in newfound stains. I took one more step closer to her making the floor creak under my weight.
Her head shot up and he sobs completely vanished. Her makeup was smeared across her face, black mascara ran down her cheeks highlighting a fresh black eye and a bruised cheek. I could only guess that Pete came by this morning. She wiped her nose with her forearm and slowly slid up the wall, but she was far too weak and fell right back into the position I found her in.
"Aren't you supposed to be at school?"
I let out a hallowed laugh and threw my backpack on the ground. "And you care?"
She sniffled. "I don't"
We sat in silence for a few seconds. She was trying to hide her ever so clear misery, and I was trying to figure out why she was even home in the first place.
"What's all this?" I gestured to all the papers scattered on the floor, just noticing they all came from one file.
She pulled her hair back and tried to stand up once more, successfully doing so this time. She grabbed her purse from beside her and sifted through it pulling out a fresh pack of cigarettes. She looked into my eyes with an empty stare and light the cigarette. Did she think I would care? I'm still not sure.
"Do you want me to ask again?" my eyes widened as I gestured once more to the mess.
She sighed and took a deep inhale from her cig. "I'm dying"
I froze. "You're what?"
She groaned and took a step closer to me. "I'm dying. Is that clear enough?"
"H-How?"
She copied my gesture from earlier and pointed toward the papers on the ground. "See for yourself."
Slowly, I made my way toward them. Letters from doctors, documentation of blood tests, x-rays, the whole shebang. There was too many words I'd never heard of, and not enough of them made any sense, all except one.
"Cancer?"
A small tear ran down her cheek as she turned away from me.
"Brain cancer."
Here is the moment where people start crying, or where they beg whatever God they believe in to save their dear beloved. Instead, my first reaction was to laugh.
"Brain cancer?" I chuckled. "Of all the things I thought would kill you, not once did I ever think of brain cancer. STI? Maybe, or even a mugging gone wrong, or yet! A heart attack. But brain cancer? Wow. I could never have guessed."
She stopped what she was doing and swung around to face me. I don't ever think I will forget the look in her eyes in that moment.
"That's what you say to me? That's what you say to your mother when she tells you she's dying? You don't even tell her I love you!?"
I laughed again. "That would be a little rhetorical, don't you think?"
"I raised you! I fed you! I clothed you! I took care of you when you were sick! I gave you a home to grow up in, I gave you life, and this is how you repay me? By laughing!?"
Now I was angry.
"In what fairy tale have you been living in Marion? You never fed me, you never clothed me, and you barely raised me. I raised myself, I taught myself! You may have given me life, but that is all that you have ever done!", I dared not mention Rays name. For if I did there would be hell unleashed.
In that moment, her face changed. Her lips pursed as she bit the inside of her cheek.
"Come here."
"No"
"I. Said. Come. Here."
I refused.
She stomped toward me and pulled my arm toward her.
"I wish I never had you, I wish you never existed. You are nothing, and will always be nothing." She seethed.
She pulled my sleeve up to my elbow. I tried to pull away, as her long pointed nails dug into my skin, but I couldn't escape her grasp.
She looked straight into my eyes as she flipped the burning end of her cigarette toward my arm.
"Don't ever forget that."
She smiled as she forced the cigarette onto my skin.
I didn't cry, I didn't even breathe. I just glared into the depths of her blackened soul as she smiled at the sight of her hands inflicting pain onto her only child.
When she was done, she laughed. "That should teach you a thing or two on how to treat your mother."