Swallow

Prologue:

I learned at an early age that life was not a fucking fairytale.

At least not mine.

There were no heroes who came to save the day when you needed them, no magical woodland creatures to sing your sorrows to, and no fucking little fairies running around granting wishes to the unfortunate.

Instead, life was just a series of random moments strung together that defined who you were. My moments early in life shaped me into the person I became—someone incapable of trust who lacked the ability to love. I walked through life angry and filled with hate. I was conditioned to see only the bad parts of humanity. When I did happen to stumble upon some good, I twisted and warped it until there was nothing left.

I wasn't going to lie; I was selfish. I was a user and a taker.

I was not the perfect guy that spouted bullshit poetry lines to sweep a girl off their feet in the rain. I didn't take long walks on the beach under the moonlight or hold hands while looking up at the stars. I wasn't the guy who brought a girl a box of chocolates just to see the smile on her face.

I was a purely unfiltered asshole and perfectly content with it, or so I thought.

What was once the coping mechanism developed by a scared child became my identity. When the anger-filled guard I put up wasn't enough, I started filling my body with drugs and alcohol to dull my tortured mind. That's how I learned to survive the pain life handed me.

If I didn't have to actually live in this life, then nothing could hurt me.

I never expected anyone to understand why I did the things I did because I didn't understand them myself. I never felt like I had a choice in who I became; it was something written and predestined the moment I was brought into existence. I definitely had no control over it. I was created this way by an abusive, absentee father who knocked my mother up at the age of fifteen and fed her false truths about how he would take care of what was his.

He took care of us all right, just not in the ways he promised.

I spent most of my childhood helping my mom cover her bruises. At three years old, I learned how to help her paint the face she let the world see.  She would tell me my dad didn't mean to do it, that he just got so mad sometimes he had to let it out.

He let it out on her often.

The only time she was ever safe was when he would disappear for weeks at a time. Things would start to get normal for a while and she would even start to smile again. He would come back just as everything looked brighter for us. He would apologize and beg for her forgiveness. He would pick me up in his arms, spin me around, and tell me how much he loved me. He would take her by the hand and promise her that tomorrow would be a new beginning for us. My dad promised he would change for her, for us.

I never believed him, but Mom always did. No matter how many times he let her down, she always took him back.

After a few days, the cycle would start all over again. The bruises would come back slowly until they covered every inch of her body.

My mom smiled through her pain during the daytime when she would play with me.  She would take me outside and chase me around the front yard as she limped around in agony from the drug-fueled beating she endured the night before. We weren't allowed inside the house when he was home sleeping during the day. If I made a noise and woke him up, she would be the one who suffered. He would take it out on her even if it was my fault.

Mom would cry in the middle of the night when she thought I couldn't hear her.  Every night she buried her tears into her pillow. Her pain was the lullaby I fell asleep to. Sometimes when he was particularly bad, she would sneak into my room and curl up in my bed to hold me. She would be shaking as she wrapped her hand in mine. I would sing to her softly until she fell fast asleep.