𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐈𝐒𝐇// 𝐄𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐗𝐎𝐂

𝐢𝐢𝐢. ✭ 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐀 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄

MAY, 1977; CHANCE

"You promised you'd get better." My daddy's voice was muffled from my parent's bedroom door. For once, I wasn't even trying to snoop. I was minding my own, making these colorful beaded bracelets. My grandma got me the jewelry kit. She said she got it because it was just like me, bright and colorful.

Trying to drown out Mama and Daddy, I began to hum to myself. I wished I could go over to Eddie's and mute my parents with his headphones and rock and roll music. No such luck, Eddie and his uncle were on a day trip to Indianapolis. They wouldn't be back till the day after.

"Fuck, Thomas, all you do is nag, you know that?" Mama bit back, her voice rising over Daddy's. "Nag! Nag! Nag! Nag! I don't think you ever stop nagging!"

My heart felt like a clawed hand had gripped around it, slowly digging its fingernails into my precious inner flesh. I usually liked snooping but not when it came to my parents.

I hated when they'd fight. I hated it more than anything in the entire world. More than cancer or Jason Carver or accidentally running my thigh against the corner of a coffee table.

I counted the beads on the wooden table, fingers shaking slightly as I organized them. "One...two..."

"Shhh!" Daddy hissed angrily before returning to his regular docile tone. "Misty, please keep your voice down. Chance is-"

"Lower your voice. Do this! Do that! I can't spend a single moment here without being told what to do! It's like a fucking cage in here, Man!" Mama's words stung like summer blackberry thorns prickling against my skin. "This place is suffocating me! I feel like I'm trapped!"

"Three...four..."

"I can't do this! This is fucking...fucking insanity!" Cried, Mama. "I can't do this anymore!" My ears jolted up when their bedroom door swung open ferociously. "I can't fucking do this!" She jolted past me, a thin sheen of sweat across her forehead, without giving me a second look.

With great strength, I forced myself to keep my eyes glued on the beads. "Five...six..." My bottom lip trembled as I spoke. I could feel it shaking along with the entirety of my body. "Seven...eight..." Now my heart was jumping up and down, slamming against the inner parts of my body. It was screaming to get out of its confinement. "Nine...ten..."

"Can we not do this in front of Chance? Please." Daddy was blazing behind her, trying to reason with someone who had none. "Please, Misty." Then his voice dropped to a quiet hush. One that my cursed ears still found easy to pick up. "We can send her to go get an ice cream-"

"Why? So that when she comes home she won't find her mother?" Snapped Mama, shoveling random articles into a duffle. "I'm not gonna lie to her, Thomas. I'm not gonna leave her without an explanation."

"What kind of explanation are you going to tell her?!" Now Daddy's voice was straining, reaching a volume it never had before had. "I'm following my dreams of doing fucking drugs and living on the street!" His voice cracked at the end, warbling with the same ring of a person on the verge of tears.

"Oh just shut up!" Roared Mama, her shouting striking fear into my bones. "Shut the fuck up! You don't know anything about anything!" I made pictures out of the grains on the kitchen table's wood. I traced out the sun, moon, stars, and planets. "You don't even know what it's like to live!"