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RUNAWAY CHAPTER ONE What would you do if the only person you trusted turned their back on you? The woman that
gave birth to you no longer gave a damn about you. You were all alone, had no clue what to do or where to go. This is where
I am right now, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do. How many times can you hear “you ain’t going
to be shit” before you start to believe it? Who are you supposed to trust when the one person who
was supposed to have your back, threw you to the wolves? I want to wake up tomorrow and realize that this was all a bad dream.
I want to wake up in the morning and smell the breakfast that my mother would have cooked me, my brother and sisters, if none
of this would have happened, but I know that my reality is that I am now alone. Everything I do from now on is for me and
me only. My mind raced back to earlier tonight when I came home and found my mother passed out on the couch
as usual. I checked in on my brother and sisters to make sure that they were asleep before I tried to wake my mother. My brother
Justin and I were 5 years apart, he was 10 and I was 15. My sisters Trisha and Sasha were 8 and 9 years old. After I checked
on them I went back downstairs into the livingroom, picked up the empty vodka bottle and threw it in the garbage. I stared
at her for a minute and watched how peacefully she was sleeping; that wasn’t going to last long. “Come on ma, time for bed”. I lifted her up and helped her into her bed and pulled the covers over
her. I was relieved that she didn’t fight me like she sometimes did whenever I woke her up from her drunken sleep.
My mother was a closet alcoholic. She went to work everyday and all her friends loved and respected her. No one ever
knew how much she drank or how abusive she could be. I would always make sure I was out the house on Saturdays
because she would drink from sun up to sun down. Every weekend it was the same. I can’t remember one weekend that she
was sober. She would hide the vodka bottles under the kitchen sink and she would always pour orange juice in her glass first
like we didn’t know what was going in the glass next. I sensed that she had a rough life as a young girl but she never
talked about it so I couldn’t figure out why she was so unhappy or what made her drink the way she did. Whenever her
best friend Marlene would visit they would drink all night long and lock themselves up in her room; by the end of the night
you could hear my mother yelling about stories from her past and that would result in her crying. I would hear bits and pieces
from my room and whatever it was revolved around my father and grandfather. My mother always treated me
different from my brother and sisters and I guessed that was because I had a different father from them. She always called
my father a bum and always told me that I would grow up to be just like him. None of us saw our fathers and it was mostly
because of her. In her mind, if we spent time with anybody other than her, somehow they would turn us against her, what she
didn’t know was that she was doing a good job of that on her own. My brother and sisters weren’t really affected
by her drinking; it was me that got punished every time she got drunk. She made sure that Justin, Trisha
and Sasha stayed in the house or never went pass the front yard; going to school was suppose to be our only outdoor activity
but I managed to sneak out and visit my friends. Truthfully I think she just stopped caring wherever I
was concerned. I went upstairs and laid down glad that Saturday was over. I should have known it was too good to be true.
I had just closed my eyes when I heard her; “Kishaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where the fuck you at?” She was
coming up the stairs and my heart started beating fast as hell. “Do you hear me talking to
you girl?” I jumped out my bed because lying down made me an easy target. I
stood facing the door waiting for it to fall down because I was sure she was going to kick it open. She settled for just flinging
it open hard enough for it to hit the wall and cause a loud bang. “Where were you Kisha? Why
didn’t you answer me when I called you?” I could still smell the vodka on her breath. “I
was sleep, I didn’t hear you.” I prayed that it wouldn’t go farther than that. “Bullshit, you just came in this house! Do you think I’m stupid? I know you were probably out fucking with
the rest of those little bitches down the street”. My prayers were unanswered; it was going
to get ugly. Answering her only made her angrier so I kept quiet. “Oh
so you’re not going to answer me, huh? You think your so fucking grown. All you dumbass little girls
know how to do is keep you’re fucking legs open!” I was my mother’s child and
couldn’t keep my mouth shut; “ma, what are you talking about? All we did was watch tv”. She looked at me like I was crazy and leaped forward. “Bitch,
who the fuck do you think your talking to?” She landed on top of me and wrapped her hands around my throat. Normally I would just take my punishment but tonight my fear got the best of me and caused me to react in a totally
different way. I thought she was really trying to kill me so with all my strength I pushed until I was
able to get her off me but little did I know that was just the beginning. She took that as another sign of disrespect and
connected with every punch she threw. She called me all kind of names from bitch to whore and for the life of me I still can’t
figure out why I did what I did. “You stupid little bitch, I’m going to show you that there’s
only one woman in this house.” I got hit with my last blow before I swung back trying
to stop that crazy woman from knocking me unconscious. As she fell to the floor I think I went into shock, I just stared at
her falling amazed that I had done that. Sobriety must have hit her because she didn’t scream or
curse, she just looked up at me with hatred in her eyes before she got up and walked out of my room. I
didn’t know what to do but I damn sure wasn’t going to go back to bed, my brother came running into my room. “What happened Kisha?” He looked as scared as I did. I
couldn’t answer him because I had a sick feeling in my stomach. I started to speak when I heard her
coming back up the stairs. I pushed him under my bed and waited to see what was going to happen next. When she entered my
room she looked different. She looked at me like she didn’t know who I was. I saw a flicker of light
when I noticed the knife she was holding. “I’m going to fucking kill you” her words were more
like a whisper than a threat. She was calm but I saw the seriousness in her eyes. I was backing away
from her when my brother ran out from under my bed screaming for my mother not to stab me. She acted like she didn’t
see or hear him and still kept coming. I ran to push my brother out of the way and I saw the knife come down in slow motion.
I closed my eyes as I fell to the floor with my brother in my arms. I could hear my mother screaming and
her knees hitting the floor. I could feel my brother’s body go limp and I could feel something warm running down my
arms. It took a while for me to get courage enough to open my eyes and when I did I wished I had kept them closed forever.
Justin’s eyes were closed and both me and him were covered with blood; my sisters were now awake and in my room, screaming
along with my mother. “You did this!!! You killed my son!!! Kisha you killed my baby!!!!
I held my brother until the ambulance came and even then I didn’t want to let him go. I could
hear my mother downstairs talking to the police. “She stabbed him, she killed my baby”. My body started trembling as I was trying to understand why my mother would tell the police I killed my brother. I had
to think fast, I had to get out of there. I quickly changed, threw some stuff in my book bag and climbed out the window. I
saw cops in the front so I crawled to the back and jumped off the roof. Where the hell was I going to go? It was 2am, I was alone. My school was just down the block; I climbed
over the fence and came over to the bleachers. I’ve been sitting here ever since. The sun will be up soon and I know
I definitely can’t be here when school starts.
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