Usually

 

The drawer is open. Her bag is full. Never, she thought, will anyone forgive me for this. The man that married her mother after her father died is asleep in the living room, covered in drool with a beer bottle in hand, legs sprawled outwardly with his wedding ring in his left front shirt pocket, as usual. Everything is always as usual. Her step-father went out drinking the night before, as usual. He probably hooked up with some bar-hopping w***e, as usual. Her mother sobbed herself to sleep, using wine and her medication as an aide, as usual. And as usual, she listened to it all from her room, or better yet she didn’t, and put in some headphones so she could escape.

But this time headphones weren’t good enough, if they ever really were. Three days after her seventeenth birthday, her mother found out she was HIV positive, thanks to the step-father she never asked for. Combined with the meds they couldn’t afford, her disease, and the alcohol, her mother is blatantly living what is left of her life in a haze of pain. She and her mother don’t talk anymore, in fact they barely see each other. They stay in their separate rooms doing the same things, as usual. She doesn’t cook anymore. She used to be an amazing cook. She used to go on long walks and play with the family dog. The same dog that “disappeared” after he hooked on to the pant leg of her step-father the first time he struck her mother. So many things have changed over the last five years. So many things that would have stayed the same had her mother not married for convenience.

I’m not going to live like this, I refuse. She tries to pack as much as possible in her already stuffed bag with no success, there is no room left, she’ll have to leave some things behind. Maybe that’s better for her mother, anyway. Maybe she’ll keep them to remember her by. She zips the bag closed and grabs the second of two pairs of shoes that she owns and ties the shoelaces around one of the handles. There is a noise in the living room and she peers through the frame where her door used to be. The beer bottle dropped out of her step-fathers hand, onto the floor, and what was left inside trickled out onto the carpet. She thought about tomorrow, when her step-father would wake up and demand that her mother clean the stain immediately, shouting throughout the quiet house.

For a second, she reconsidered. What would happen if she left her mother alone with this man? This savage. Her mother had never abandoned her, and yet this was not her mother. No, her mother disappeared the first time he beat her. Her mother was lost, irretrievable. Leaving would do her mother no harm. Something inside her still felt a pang of guilt and sadness; pity even, for this shell of a woman who lost herself along with her will to fight.

She gathers her bag in her hands and slipps a hat on her head before exiting her room. She walks quietly and cautiously past her step-fathers chair, where she kicks the beer bottle, making it noisily knock into the leg of the coffee table. She’s frozen. She hears him clear his voice.

“And where do you think you’re going? Running away? You think you’ll pull that s**t again” The coldness in his voice was clear and fluid, along with the slight slur of his words.

“As a matter of fact”, she says with a cracking voice, “I am. I’m leaving.”

Mocking her he says, “Because you’re so grown up at seventeen, you can put food on the table, and a roof over your head. You don’t know your a*s from your elbow and you think you’ll make it out there? You’ve got another thing coming you little good for nothing little FREAK!” She stares at him, quiet, almost in tears. Then she thinks, no, that’s what her mother would do.

“I’m leaving and there’s nothing you can do to stop me, ever.”

He laughs. “You’ll probably end up prostituting on the streets for ding dongs and crack money in a week! If you leave, I’m not taking you back, hell, I never wanted you in the first place!” He stood up and pointed a finger at her. “You’re just like your mother, weak and needy. You’ve tried to leave before and we all see just how that’s worked for you!” He smirked, thinking he’d won. “You always come crawling back.”

She opened the door, took a half step out and turned back before leaving, to leave him with one final statement of both courage and defiance.

“Usually.”

Author's Note

Just a first draft, I'm working on refining as of today, anything helps!