Hayley was lying awake in her bed, listening to the angry screams of her mother and soon-to-be step mother, Kerry. What she calls the "Step-Thing."
"She's my fucking daughter. You're the love of my life. How can you sit there and tell me to choose?" she could hear her mother in a hushed sort of shout.
Then the voice of the Step-Thing, "Either she leaves, or I do. I can't live in this house with her."
She could hear the hurt in her mother's voice beneath the anger. There was a crash. What'd she break this time? Hayley wondered as she bit her bottom lip. Tears welled up in Hayley's eyes. This was nothing new. She wanted so much to go down and scream, "If you want me out, I'll leave! I don't want to stay anyways. I want a family that cares about me, not a step-mother who treats me like shit while my real mother does nothing."
But she continued to lie still, telling herself to breathe and be silent. All families have problems. Not all girls have a mother who's about to marry another woman, but that wasn't what bothered her. Hayley liked girls, too, and was glad to have a mom that didn't hate her for it. It was the fights that bothered her, but all families have them.
Right?
Her mothers no longer hushed her shouting as she called for Hayley.
"HAYLEY MADISON. Wake up and get your ass down here."
Oh, no. What did she do this time? She did her dishes, hand-dried every one and double checked for water spots. The water spots made Kerry "sick."
"They're ca-ca, darlin'. CA-CA, nasty!" She'd say in her thick Jersey-sounding accent. The sound of her voice drove Hayley insane.
She had vacuumed the living room, dining room, and even the dog bed. She'd been yelled at for trying to sleep on the dog bed before her mother had bought an air mattress that sank to the floor while she slept. She never did comment on the two-thousand dollar, brand-new bed and frame that sits in their room. That'd get her locked in her room for at least a month. Hayley got up and headed down the stairs nevertheless.
"Yes, mommy?" Hayley hesitated.
"I never thought I'd have to have this talk with you. Living room. Now."
The Step-Thing left the house and got in the car. She needed to cool off.
"Hayley, I know that you listen to Kerry and I when we have sex. Why would you do that? What the hell's going on in your head? She's ready to leave me because of you."
Hayley looked at her in astonishment. Listen to them having sex? Is she curious? She couldn't bear knowing that her mother was with the Step-Thing every day. She couldn't stand looking Kerry in the face without the heat of anger rushing to her head.
"I don't listen to you guys have sex! I never would! I've told you guys to stop every time that I heard you, and you never do. You just ignore me. The other day I called a friend to take me out of the house."
This made her mother angry.
"Kerry says she hears you standing next to our door. She says you turn down your music so you can hear us better. Why would she lie to me?" her mother was becoming more and more flustered.
"Because she can't stand me! She wants to get rid of me. She's making it up, mommy. Why would I lie to you?" Hayley herself was flustered. The Step-Thing's words were always believed over her own.
Hayley looked at her phone. It was 2:13 am, and she had to get up in three hours for school.
School was one of the only times that Hayley got to escape. She'd try as often as she could to get her chores done and get out of the house with her friends. They'd walk around the whole town of Cambridge until dark. Her friends Cole, Kaylee, and Jared came every morning to drive her, and those car rides were the most fun she had. She'd sit anxiously in the back seat of Cole's car as they pulled up to Jared's house. She wished that Kaylee would sit up front so that she could spend time with Jared, but that rarely happened. At school no one noticed her and at home she was mistreated, but those car rides with her friends were the only happy moments of the day that she had. After that, it was clean, do homework, and then lie down on her air mattress if she can't get out of the house and hope that her mother doesn't need her for anything.
