A Second Chance

Chapter 2

My head was pounding as I sat in the living room with a bag of chips nuzzled in my lap. The sound of my parents' voices increased when I got home, continuing their pathetic argument as if I were just a ghost quietly slipping past the walls. It was an everyday occurrence that's been going on for over the span of five years. They yell and scream at each other throughout the whole night until their voice gets too raw to even whisper.

Every morning I wake up with a headache due to the lack of sleep because of how loud they're arguing. It's gotten to the point where I won't even see them for days since they're always in a different room than me so they make sure I can't hear. I don't think they've ever realized that it's not just me who should worry about being able to hear their arguments, because our neighbors often complain about the noise coming from inside our house.

The verbal abuse they throw at each other, sometimes to the point where they even insult me, has gotten worse as the years went on. I try to blast my music through my headphones, anything to drown out their voices. I still haven't fully understood why they never got a divorce, seeing how unhappy they truly are as I  grew older and matured young.

My father would sometimes go as far as insulting me on how much of a "bitch" I am since apparently, I get that trait from my mother. While growing up, my father wasn't around as much as I wanted or needed him to be. He wasn't even there when I took my first steps.

Through the few times I've actually listened to what they were saying in their arguments, I've learned that my dad spent most of my childhood locked away in a casino, gambling my mother's hard earned money. He always ended up denying everything, calling my mother delusional that she would even think that low of him. No one was able to dig their way through his thick skull and try to reason with him. It was impossible.

I knew his gambling was one of the reasons they frequently argued, but I had a gut feeling that wasn't the only reason. There had to be a specific reason as to why they haven't gotten a divorce yet. It surely wouldn't be because they wanted to stay together for the sake of their child, right? If so, they would've already gotten a divorce because they would've seen how much they were destroying their daughters mental health.

As I approached the age of eighteen, I've noticed a lot more about my parents than I ever did when I was twelve. Like how my mother's eye bags would be darker as she woke up every morning, or how my father would come home every Saturday after gambling the rest of our money, drunk, as I often had to pick up the mess he made of beer bottles scattered all over the tile while he passed out for the night.

I never truly realized how bad it's gotten, not just for them, but as a whole family. I've practically raised myself the past few years and it's almost like I don't exist in their mind. The few times I actually see them downstairs together and their not yelling, my mother is always kissing his ass, letting him say whatever the fuck he wants to say, whether he's insulting my mother, or even me. There are no boundaries when it comes to my father. He says whatever he wants to say, whenever he wants.

As I've watched my parent's relationship slowly deteriorate throughout the years, I've made a promise with myself that I will never make my future children feel the way they've made me feel since I was twelve. I've mastered the art of faking it until I made it, seeing as though I put on my mask at school, fooling everyone around me as a fake smile was plastered on my face the entire day. As long as everyone else thought I was okay, then I was.

I was just a burden in my parents eyes, and I've unfortunately come to terms with it because I knew that accepting it now would hurt less than accepting it in the future.

I believe the reason I've become so drawn to football is because it's the only connection I have left with my parents. It's the only thing left that makes me feel connected to them, like I can pretend that my childhood was amazing and how my father taught me everything I know. I've been trying for so long to find ways to cope with the trauma I've dealt with that I think I just turned to this sport for an escape.