I Never Told You What I do for a Living

16,000 people are murdered each year. That means that in six years there have been around 100,000 murders in America alone. Two of those 16,000 were my closest friends one year. And that made us lose our minds. Or did we find it? That's one question I always asked myself. Were we doing the right thing? Murder rates started going up at one point, but we'll get to that later. Right now, let's talk about when I lost it.

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It was the last week of school, Gerard had already gotten out of this hell hole a year before and Mikey was next. Then it was my turn and then Abbey. But there was talk that Abbey would be getting moved up a grade as well. That made us pretty excited, in a way. Lately I had been having negative thoughts about hurting myself. I had witnessed by father beat my mother, my cousin had attempted to rape me, but failed when I hit his head against the edge of my bed, and my best friend, Abbey, had tried to kill herself. It was all coming down on me. And for some reason, ending it seemed like the best way out.

Yeah, it's selfish, but at the time I thought there was no other way of ending the pain that I felt. My mom didn't come back after that beating, she left me a note saying this:

My sweet, beautiful daughter. I know we were never tight knit, but I want you to know that you mean the world to me. And that right now, what your father did to me was just a warning. I'm divorcing him, babe. But it's for our own good. I know he wouldn't have the guts to hit his own daughter, and so the only thing I trust him with is you. Please, remember that I'm not leaving you behind, I'm rescuing myself so I could be there for you someday. You're rescuing me by letting me go. There was never another man, you know that. But your father is too stubborn to understand. I didn't get sick of the marriage, as he believes, I got sick of the way I was being treated. Of the beatings and the hurtful words he's said.

I don't have time to re-write this, so I leave you with this tear stained letter and pray that you forgive me. Someday I will find you, I will, I promise. But now I need to go and save myself. I will always love you. You will always be my little girl.

Her signature was shaky at the end. I hated my father after that. I had decided to never speak a word to him again.

I fixed my combat boots before deciding to head out of the house. It was a Tuesday afternoon. It was one of those years when school ended on an exact Friday. My hair moved with the wind, making it's messed up curls bounce up and down. I had decided to meet Mikey at the park, his favorite spot. We would sit on a rock that was by a tree sometimes and just think.

When I arrived, he had his legs crossed and sat on the grass, smoking a cigarette, "Want some?" he asked, holding his hand up. I shook my head 'no' and sat beside him.

"Why'd you call me down here?" I asked him. We were at a point where our lives couldn't be fixed. Mikey and Gerard's father had been in a car accident. A drunk driver hit his car head on. We didn't have any facial expression. We just couldn't be read.

"I've been thinking a lot. I don't want to go to college." he spoke almost in a whispered voice.

"I know, I feel the same way."

"I just finished high school and my mom keeps asking me about what I'm gonna do next. She said that she doesn't want me to become one of those people that works at a super market for the rest of their lives. But someone has to have that job, right?"

I slightly chuckled, "I know what you mean. But even though I don't want to go to college, I have to. I don't speak to my father. I know that as soon as I graduate he's going to kick me out. I need to have a job that pays good enough for me to get a place and support myself."

"Your father has a lot of money, Rox, he'll kick you out, yeah, but he's going to give you something."

"Yeah, but money is like water. When you need it, you use it. But sooner or later you're gonna have to go back and get some more. I don't want to have to rely one one person, one who I don't even talk to, just so I can ask him for something I can get on my own."

"I understand. What were you thinking?"

"Nursing. It pays good. I mean, 40 dollars an hour isn't bad. And I'm pretty brave when it comes to disturbing stuff."

"True."

"What about you? Are you really considering working at a supermarket?"

"I was being sarcastic. I want to do something, I don't know, anything. Just, I don't want to waste years of my life studying something I don't even like. You have a reason, I don't. My family has money too. And they're all so hard headed that they give us all money to keep up the family name. So I might just open a small store or something. I can have a dollar store." he smiled.

"That'd be great. And I would shop for my clothes there. I'm super cheep, you know it."

We were silent the rest of the time. I finally decided to leave when it started getting dark. But what happened next is the beginning of our sinful lives.