Cherry

Chapter 8

Cherry

"Cherry! I need you!" I hear my mom yell through the house. I walk away from my easel, leaving my painting alone to dry. I walk into the living room and find my mom laying on the floor with her arm held away from her body. A dark purple bruise sits on the inner part of her arm, and I don't know what causes her to continue to get these bruises, but it makes me sad. I don't want my mom to be hurt.

"What's wrong, Mom?" I crouch down beside her on the floor.

"Nothing, Cherry. I'm just feeling a little tired, that's all. Can you do your mom a favor?"

I shake my head up and down, and she goes on to say, "There's a needle on the kitchen counter I need you to grab for me. I'm too tired to get it myself. Do you think you can do that for me?"

"Is it medicine?" I ask as I stand up away from her.

"Yes. It's going to make me feel a lot better once I take it."

Of course, I want her to feel better, so I'll do anything to help. I walk into the kitchen and see the needle filled with medicine sitting on the counter, right where Mom said it would be. I grab it carefully and take it over to her, and I watch her quickly grab it from me. I sit on the floor next to her and watch her as she injects the needle right beside her bruise.

"How come when I take medicine I have to drink it from a little cup? Why do you have to take it with a needle? Doesn't it hurt?"

It's almost like something switched in my mom's head, because she shouts, "Fuck, Cherry! Do you have to be so goddamn nosy all the time?"

Her shouting always scares me, and right now, I feel like my soul just jumped out of my body. "I-I'm sorry, I-"

"I didn't ask you to sit and talk with me! I needed you for one goddamned thing, so now that I have it, get the fuck out!" she sits up and slaps me across my face, pain entering me both physically and mentally.

"When will you learn I'm your mom, not your friend?" she screams at the top of her lungs as I run to my bedroom. When I enter, I slam my door and lock it. I fall to the ground as tears flood the floor around me. Once the pool of tears reaches my neck, I hear my mom outside of my door, yelling, "Cherry! Open the door. Your mom gets cranky when she hasn't had her medicine. I'm sorry. Just open the door."

But, I'm completely submerged underwater now. My painting is destroyed, along with all of my other belongings. Everything is soaked and I'm going to lose oxygen soon. I'm floating to my ceiling as I hear my mom knocking on my door, demanding to be let inside. She keeps banging, and banging, and banging...

I let out a loud gasp as I rapidly rise in my bed. I'm dripping in sweat and my heart seems to be beating a mile a minute. I scan the area around me, and I come to realize I was having another nightmare. You're safe, Cherry. It was just a dream.

Once I catch my breath and recollect myself, I look over at my clock sitting on my nightstand, which reads four thirty-two A.M. I have to be up to get ready for work in four hours, but I know I won't be able to go back to sleep after the dream I just had.

I don't know why I still have dreams about my birth mom. No one knows I have these dreams, either. What happened to me was so long ago, and it'd be embarrassing to tell anyone about it now. Of course, my moms know about my birth mom's addiction and abusive behavior. They just don't know the dark shit that I'll take to my grave.

I've been having these nightmares for what feels like an eternity. I know I got them while I still lived with my birth mom, so they've been going on for a while. I get terrified to go to sleep most nights just because I know something horrible will find me in my dreams.

I don't know how to fix myself. There's always so much going on in my mind, the only thing that cures my anxieties is painting. I recently read that writing your dreams in a dream journal helps you take better control of your mind, so when you have a nightmare you'll know how to react to it. I'm not much of a writer, so I hope painting does the trick for me.

I remove my damp blanket and step out of bed and head to my easel. The last painting I created was a field of flowers, as requested by Momma. I painted her favorite flowers for her to hang in the living room. Now whenever I look at it, I just get sad because of her diagnosis. I remove it from the easel and place it on the floor, being careful to not ruin it. I'll give it to Mom and Momma in the morning.

I sit in the chair in front of my empty canvas and begin to paint. I allow my depressive thoughts and worries to tell their stories on my canvas. By the time I've blended blues and whites and blacks and greys together, it's already five A.M.

Once I complete the finishing touches on the painting, I crawl back into bed, covered in blue paint. I'm too tired to wash the color off my body, so I rest my head on my pillow and try to think of something happy to keep my mind off the past.