The Things That Hurt The Most

Chapter 21; Our Happy Ending

The shopping wasn't so boring. We found a few decorations that we both liked and bought them. By the time we were back home Bryan had already been back from work and was watching a football game in the living room. He had a beer in his hand but didn't seem to be drunk. I recognized a drunk person when I saw him. Something I had managed to do over a couple of months with my dad.

Although he wasn't a bad guy everyone had their bad days. Of course those days happened when he got drunk. Once he got a hold of one single beer he lost control and went out to buy more and more until he just simply couldn't drink anymore. He'd sometimes wake up in the bathroom floor or other times in our backyard. I guess we were lucky that nothing ever happened to him but it was a different story for me.

He wasn't a happy drunk, he was a violent one. Making me his punching bag whenever he lost control. Of course everyday after he had gotten drunk he always took me out to go buy some more clothes, toys, or to my favorite restaurant to get me to shut up about it. Which is why I never said a single word. Mom also liked to get drunk but she wasn't a violent drunk, soon after she got drunk she fell asleep and didn't wake up until noon. She knew what dad did to me and talked to him about it every single month and every single month he promised her the same thing but what was I to know? I was only 5 when this started to happen. I didn't know it was wrong for your father to abuse you. I feel like I probably would've done something about it if he did it every day but it was only once or twice a month. I completely forgot this side to him the other 29 or so days.

Of course I still have flashback of some of the abuse I went through, the ones that were really bad. Not so bad that I had to end up in a hospital but bad enough for me to miss a couple days at school until I felt better. The worst one was, of course, the day I woke up in a hospital. I never talk about those nights afraid that they might bring the flashbacks once again and having to go through the pain once more.

I sometimes feel kind of jealous towards Aiden. He didn't have to go through the abuse I went through and he probably would have... Of course I always wonder how different things would've been if Aiden actually made it. Of course my dad would still be in jail for nearly killing him if he had survived but would my mom be with Bryan? Would I have these scars? The self harm? The memories? Would I have more friends? Would we of been a family from the beginning? There's a lot of what ifs and there's no use in them. it's not like I can go back in time and change things.

If it were possible for me to go back in time to change things then I'm not sure if I would. What if things actually ended up worse? But what if they ended up better? Maybe in the end we both got a happy ending. Maybe we both got to enjoy life. I'm not saying I hate alcoholics, we all have our own way to deal with our pain but I never saw anything my dad had to deal with. He didn't have any problems, he actually had a good job as a lawyer. Maybe his only problem was stress but that still wouldn't be something that would make you lose control and make your own daughter a punching bag.

And everything has an effect. I can't look at people in the eye out of fear of something I can't explain, I'm not even sure what it is. Of course if Aiden had survived then things would be different but I'm blaming all my problems on my dad and not a single one on my mother. She also had a lot to do in this and I think she had an even greater effect on me than my dad did but it was my dad that changed her, that made her do what she did. He killed his own son and I can't blame my mother for that. Of course she would go into depression and how was a 7 year old going to know that? Mommy doesn't want to talk right now, her son died and she's crying in her room. Maybe if you give her some space for a few months things would've gone back to normal. I think that things would of been better for me if my mother had gotten help earlier. I had to suffer through it and at the age of 7 I had a somewhat not so helpful idea of what was going on, all I knew was that mommy was sad.

Mommy was sad and I didn't know how to help. I couldn't help.

~~~ A/N ~~~
I really have no idea where this chapter came from O.o I hadn't planned on writing it, it just came out as I was typing which is why I'm talking about Bryan the first paragraph then her dad the next. Double update? Yay? Oops XD