A Drug that Changed My Life - Cashby

Chapter Five

“Hey, Alan. How was your day?” My mom asked, wiping her eyes and trying to put on a brave face for me.

“This happened.” I said, tears pricking my eyes again when I pulled up Austin’s hoodie sleeve and showed her the cut, which my dad had inflicted on me the night before. “It looks a lot worse now than it did before.” I said, referencing the sickly purple color it was turning around the edges.

“Oh, honey... what happened?” She asked. She walked towards me, gently taking my arm and looking at it.

My dad opened the door, walking in, and my mum automatically jumped away, and I quickly pulled down my sleeve. The hell fire was in his eyes. “What are you doing?” He snarled at me.

“N-nothing...” I stuttered. I dropped my bag and backed towards the stairs.

“Stay.” He demanded. I looked up at him, fear in my eyes. “You showed her, didn’t you?”

“N-” before I could even get the word out, he smacked me. Hard.

“I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU NOT TO FUCKING LIE TO ME!” He screamed. Then he took a fistful of my red hair in his hand so I had to look at him. “WERE YOU OR WERE YOU NOT SHOWING HER THE SCAR?!”

“YES, I WAS!” I screamed back, a silent tear running down my face.

He smiled wickedly. “Aww, how sad. The fag is crying.” He said, then slammed me against the wall.

“Don’t you dare talk to our son like that.” My mom said through her tears. His eyes widened and he turned slowly to face her.

“What did you just say to me?” I could see the fear in my mum’s eyes, she knew she had set him off now, this time on her. I felt my phone vibrate in my back pocket, but ignored it, watching my parents and pleading that my father wouldn’t hurt my mum.

It kept vibrating, meaning that I was getting a call instead of just a text. It was getting heated, he was really going at her, and I just shrunk against the wall and covered my ears, my head against my knees, trying to block it out when the screaming started. I bashed my head against the wall, not caring when the back of my head felt wet with blood. I just needed to get the sounds of my mother’s screams out of my head. My dad turned around to face me.

“Scram fag!” I scurried up the stairs to my room, curling up in my bed, the tears immediately pouring down my face. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see who called me. The name on the phone suprised me: it was Austin. He’d left a message too and I listened to the message.

“Hey man, Austin here, um, I just wanted to remind you to bring me my hoodie... uh so... yeah. We should hang out sometime too, if...”  Austin’s voice is muffled, him replying to someone at his house. “if you want. So yeah, uh... bye?”

I decided to text Austin back, knowing my voice would be a dead giveaway that something was up.

Hey, I’ll bring your hoodie tomorrow... I realized that I’d have nothing to cover my arm, and decided I’d go on a more thorough hunt after texting Austin back. and uh sure, when?

I got up from my bed, wiping the tears from my face, and started to hunt through my clothes, cleaning up my room a bit in the process.

Whenever works for you, I’m not a busy person.

Okay so tomorrow after school? Is that okay?

Yeah sure! My place or yours?

I hesitate before replying. I forgot, making friends would involve them coming over to my house... seeing my mess of a house, my mess of a family, my mess of a life.