Is This What You Call a Family?

They were yelling again. I didn’t like it when they yelled. I took a deep, slow breath to try to calm myself. With my arms wrapped around my legs and the sound of my Every Avenue CD drifting softly in the air, I tried to keep my mind away from my worries and melt into my fantasy world. That was impossible, though, with their volume.

“I’m tired of your shit Ally! You cheat on me every chance you get!” My mother’s current boyfriend, Marcus, shouted at her. I didn’t like him. He came into our home and acted like he owned the place instead of her. But then again, what was new? All they did was pretend they at least owned her, he was just the one around the longest to pretend he owned the apartment.

“Did you ever stop to think maybe it’s because you are an ass to me who cheats on me too? I deserve better than you!” My mother shouted back just as loudly. “All you’re good for is a fix!”

“You better shut your fucking mouth! You deserve nothing!”

That was all I heard as I frantically tried to escape into my thoughts again. I knew I was a step away from a panic attack and I couldn’t handle it right now. Their argument had only just begun and with them fighting, my mother couldn’t calm me at all. And she was the only one who was able to. I couldn’t even control myself in that state anymore.

A loud scream was what ripped me out of my thoughts and forced me to my feet before I had even realized I was no longer on my bed. Not again. I rushed out of my room, down the hall, and into the living room. Marcus was angrily kicking my mother, who was curled up in a ball on the ground, in the back in his fit of rage, shouting his insults of her ‘being a whore’ and ‘only wanting his money’.

Before I knew what I was doing, I screamed at him to stop and that he was a fuck head. He stormed over to me, slapping me so roughly across the face that I fell to the ground. He gave a swift kick to my ribs, causing me to choke on my breath and cough roughly. I thought that was all since he stormed from the room. I was sadly mistaken.

Only a few moments later he returned with his prized, aluminum baseball bat signed from Trevor Bell of the Anaheim Angels.

I braced myself for the impact, but instead I heard my mother let out a scream of pain. I forced myself up to a sitting position to see blood splatter on the floor, the baseball bat, and, most importantly, Marcus and my mother. In his rave he was shouting how she’ll never use him or any other man again. It was by this time I noticed his eyes were red and his pupils were dilated. He had been using again, that’s what had set off this whole argument. His irrational thinking while he was high had caused all of this.

I shoved myself to my feet before running at him, tackling him messily to the floor. The baseball bat slid across the floor, making a ruckus and bouncing off the ground to hit our TV and leave a spider web crack all over it. I figured the fall and losing of his weapon would stop him, but I was terribly wrong. He tossed me off and began to hit me wherever he could. I curled into a ball as he screamed affronts at me.

As my vision began to blur the world became silent. I couldn’t feel any hits or hear his harsh words that usually cut through me like a knife. Was I dying? Is this the way it was all going to end? I’m only fourteen; it can’t possibly be my time, could it? I had so much I still dreamed to accomplish.

Suddenly the world came back in a loud, painful volume. Someone was shouting orders, not that I could really understand any of them. I just recognized his tone of voice. I had heard the type many times before when Mom and her current boyfriend at the time would argue. They showed up quicker, though, at better neighborhoods. The cops showed up so the ambulance must have too. Is Mom okay? She has to be.

I could feel someone patting my face lightly, trying to make me stay awake. I slowly forced my eyes open, seeing the blurry outline of a woman dressed in a deep blue. I couldn’t tell whether it was a paramedic or an officer. Either way she kept trying to speak to me over the loud voices of the adults in the room. “You need to stay awake for me honey.”

“Mommy?” I slurred out, my vision becoming worse. “Is she okay?”

“You need to stay awake,” the woman insisted, repeating the command in her firm tone. She wasn’t going to answer me about my mother. That made me fearful. She would reassure me she was alright, wouldn’t she?

“Tell me,” I forced out, narrowing my eyes at her.

“I don’t know sweetheart. The first ambulance took her away. But now we need to focus on you. Just stay with me as the rest of my team gets the gurney up here.”

So she was a paramedic then. And they had already taken Mom? Good, she needed help more than me. As I let my eyes shut the woman began talking frantically, yelling for someone to hurry up. I felt another person turn me onto my back and try speaking to me. I attempted to stay awake, I really did, but I was exhausted. I didn’t want to be awake anymore. I just wanted to sleep.

So I did. The last thing I felt was someone checking the pulse in my wrist and the sound of wheels rolling across the hardwood floor of our apartment.