Fragile #Wattys2015

Chapter 1

Growing up in a fragile home isn't romantic. It's not cute and it's definitely not desirable. When you hear your mother stumbling in at 2:17 AM with her "co-worker" and a bag of weed it isn't funny. When your younger brother flinches every time your drunken father looks at him, it isn't comedic. When your little sister is always scared and muttering to herself and constantly getting thinner it isn't adorable. When you have to become the mother of your younger siblings it isn't brave. What it is, is tragic.

My whole life has always been a tragedy. Ever since I was born it's been that way. My mom didn't want me, just like she didn't want Benji or Evelyn. For some reason she chose to keep us, so here we are.

When I was really little my mom was always gone. Working, I guess. Of course, my mom didn't have a normal job. She was never like my friend's parents. My mom was never a lawyer, or a barista, or a teacher, or even an orthodontist. My mom was a drug dealer. I'm not talking about weed or anything easy like that. My mom dealt acid and cocaine. It's a really shitty job for a mom, but I had no say in the matter.

When I was four years old, my mom became pregnant with Benji. Accidentally, of course. I knew that things would change, but I never knew how much. My mom started working more than usual and often left me and my dad alone with Benji. I was only four years old, so I wasn't much help to my dad. He angered easily and so I usually kept out of his way. I'd sit on the couch and hold Benji and whisper into his little ears that it was gonna be okay and that momma was gonna come home soon. I was usually wrong.

Benji and I would sit on the couch, hungry and alone, until my dad felt sober enough to give us some food or until my mom came home with dinner. I usually ended up missing meals and for a while the only time I heard anything from my mother was when she and my dad were doing "adult things" late at night.

Somehow, we made it through the next few years. My dad drank and gambled his way through life while my mom's drug business grew. Eventually I started attending school.

When I started going to school I was six years old. I use to hate school because I hated leaving Benji. He looked so sad every day when he saw me leave. His little face would scrunch up into a ball and his eyes would get all glassy. He'd always grab at my hands and cry for me while I walked out the door. All I could do was kiss his messy brown hair and run out the door, leaving him with my mess of a father.

Eventually, I started liking school. I enjoyed having a routine and my teacher was the closest thing I had to a mom. Miss Sanders was her name and she always made me feel welcome and happy. By the end of kindergarten, I'd learned a lot from her and didn't want summer to begin. Of course, the inevitable happened and summer began. I spent all my time with Benji in the summer while my dad gambled away our college funds.

Years later, Benji started kindergarten. He was five and absolutely adorable. He had big brown eyes and messy sandy brown hair to match. His face was sprinkled with freckles and his ears were too big for his head. Benji was almost always happy and his little smile seemed to brighten the room.

At this time, I was in third grade and my mom was pregnant again. Meanwhile, my dad was getting progressively scarier. He started hitting Benji and screaming at my mom. He'd twist Benji's arms and pull on his ears and hit his back until Benji was screaming and sobbing for him to stop.

I was always the one to comfort Benji. I would bring him ice packs and kiss his forehead and do all the things a mother should do, but our mother was busy selling drugs and getting screamed at by our dad. He'd never hurt her though, he needed her too much. She gave him his beer and his gambling money and in return he gave her sex. That's how my family worked.

My dad never hit me or screamed at me. He barely even looked at me, to be honest. Unfortunately, that started changing. He touched me in ways that no little girl should ever be touched. My mom found out pretty quickly and put an end to it.

A few months after this happened, Evelyn was born. She brought more chaos. Almost immediately after her birth, my mom went and got a surgery to prevent her from having babies anymore. My mom became even less of a mom, always leaving me with a list of things to do and my younger siblings and my dad. I had to clean and make food and keep Evelyn and Benji happy. I never got a childhood. I was never allowed to see my friends outside of school.

Life didn't change much for a while. We all got older and life kept going on. I guess I'll fast forward to present day now. I'm 17, Benji is 13, and Evelyn is 8. My mom's drug business has expanded and she now sells almost any drug you can imagine. She's also having multiple affairs and doesn't care who knows. My dad barely moves out of his armchair and when he does it's to injure someone or to go to the bathroom. I make sure everything in this hell house is as normal as possible. Things have been getting more difficult, for all of us. People are trying even harder than usual to fuck up my life, my mom is bringing in less money and more men, my dad has begun breaking things, Evelyn is looking very sick, and Benji is failing his classes at school. It seems as though our fragile life could shatter at any moment, I can practically see the metaphorical cracks in our metaphorically glass home.

Unfortunately, the saying things have to get worse before the get better isn't always true. For us, things get worse before they become more terrible than before. As I see it, our family is approaching a huge storm and I'm not sure if our fragile house can take it.