Ch. 2

Around thirty minutes later I arrived at this little field and pond just outside the city. It was in an alcove and I was pretty sure I was the only person who knew about it. I had found it when I was about 9 years old. It had always been a place a refuge for me. A lot of tears had been shed here. I sat down in the soft, green grass and stared out at the calm water. Again I let my mind wander, but lately it seemed that it wasn’t under my control. My mind wandered whether I wanted it to or not. I thought about my mother. Then I tried to change my train of thought, but it wouldn’t derail itself. I wanted to help her, but I knew what that would result in. I thought about my “near” stepfather. He was the last thing I wanted to think about at the moment. Then my mind wandered to the infamous “night”. The thing that makes me want to kill myself everyday, well that makes me contemplate it anyways. So many things about that night I wish I could take back, but I can’t. I just find it amazing how one moment can change your entire life…

I stayed there until it was time for me to show up at home. But really it wasn’t like my mother cared anyhow. I drove back into the city. As I neared our home, my mood worsened. We didn’t live in the best of neighborhoods. In fact, we lived in the section 8 of New York. The apartments where rats live and the poorer have to beg the poor for money. But this was home for me and my mother and it had been all my life. I had never known anything else. I parked my car and walked up the stairs to our apartment door, number 9. I opened the door and a strong smell of weed smoke filled my nostrils. Nick was here, probably getting high on our couch again. He was a total useless bag of s**t. But my mother claimed she loved him and they were gonna get married soon. Well whenever she got enough money to get her and my dad’s divorce finalized. I have no idea how the hell she was gonna do that since Nick was jobless with no hope in sight and she had her uh “late night runs” as she called them, that paid our bills and kept food on the table, barely.

I sighed and walked inside. Nick looked up at me, himself sprawled out on the couch scratching himself. Ew, I thought to myself. “Where’s my mother?” I asked. He looked up half smiling, “She gone. Where the hell you been?” he asked defiantly. “It ain’t none of your damn business… You ain’t my daddy,” I shot back. “You know what, you need to learn how to respect people, little girl. Up there acting all grown, I got something fo’ little girls who think they all grown…” he said looking me up and down smiling. “F**k you!” I yelled. He jumped up from the couch and backhanded me in the face and then pushed me to the ground. Then, like nothing had even gone down, he sat back down on the couch and continued smoking. I got up off the floor, not willing to fight with him, I walked to my room and sat down on the bed. I lay down wondering how Nick would feel if he knew that my mother was cheating on him. I toyed around with the thought in my head for a while before falling off to sleep.