The Roller Coaster Ride

Kaden.

When my mom was out of town -like now- the house always smelled like beer.  I could smell it from the front driveway and prepared myself to enter.  As always, my Dad was sitting on the couch, passed out.  The coffee table in front of him was filled with empty beer bottles and his wedding band was loose on his left ring finger. 

It was four in the morning, the time I usually came home to finally go to bed.  My dad had probably been out cold since one.  I slipped his shoes off of his feet and lay him down on the couch.  He would wake up in about six hours, complain about having a headache, and not go in to work.  It was his routine, but I knew that soon he would lose his job.  Lately, he had been doing this more and more often, and his boss at the fire station was getting restless. 

I started to make a pot of coffee, already deciding that I wouldn’t sleep today.  I usually didn’t sleep anyway, just walked around like a zombie all day.  I hadn’t slept in a long time, probably two days.  The longest I’ve gone is four days.  It started right after Chris hit me the first time, when I started having nightmares. 

My dad drank when my mom left us, I didn’t sleep when Chris hit me.  It was a continuous circle of pain we both were in.  My mom was the director of the charity Fight for Africa and she had to travel places a lot.  It put a strain on my parents’ marriage because my dad missed her but she didn’t want to give up her dream job of helping people.  He didn’t understand how she could love her job more than her family.  He started drinking about a year ago, when they fought every time she managed to come home. 

I love my mom, don’t get me wrong.  But she was never home, and a call every other day for a few minutes didn’t mean much.  She barely made it to my high school graduation, coming fifteen minutes into the ceremony.  She brought me back extravagant things, but that didn’t make up for the things that she missed. 

I sat down at our small table, waiting for the coffee to brew.  I thought about going back to Chris’, but quickly decided against it.  He hadn’t been in a good mood that night since he had had another fight with his mom.  Luckily, he hadn’t hurt me, he had just wanted me there to make him feel better, which I did.  Chris and I had been dating since sophomore year and we were dubbed “The Golden Couple” at our high school.  However, no one knew what happened behind closed doors except him and I.  He didn’t mean to hurt me and the minute after, he’d regret it and hold me close.  It didn’t happen that often, just when he was really frustrated and his mom was home.  I know I should have broken up with him after the first time, but I still loved him, even after he hurt me.  I know that relationships aren’t perfect, something I  had learned from my own parents.  I just thought that Chris and I would have to work at it, and that he needed me so much that I had to stay. 

I put the finished coffee in two cups, and put cream and milk in mine.  I drank it, hoping that the caffeine would make me wake up.  I wanted so bad to sleep, but I knew even if I tried I would fail.  I was so, so tired, but my body wouldn’t listen to my brain. 

This should be the happiest time of my life, the summer before college, just graduating from high school.  But for a long time I had had to act like nothing was wrong, like I had a perfect life.  At the beginning of freshman year, I wanted so badly to fit in.  I tried out for cheerleading and surprised myself when I made the squad.  By the next year, I had made a dozen new friends and had Chris.  I was so happy that things were going so well at school, but at home it was different.  My parents had fought whenever my mom was home and it was slowly tearing me apart.  But I didn’t let myself fall apart, especially in front of my friends.  I guess I became a very good actor, always playing a happy girl with no worries who had everything.