Protection

Alone?

Nicole's POV: The weekend we spent with Nana was great, it made me forget about everything that has been going on. My dad hasn't really been home, not on weekends either. Mom has been drinking like usual, but something we always knew she secretly did was smoke. With the constant drinking she has started to smoke more as well. Her and my dad have been smoking and drinking all my life but they always shielded us away from that, not anymore now she does not care if we see her in that way. But it's my job to keep JJ away from seeing her that way. Still doing my nightly duties of locking the house up and checking on mom. But as the days go on and on it makes me more and more upset and I don't feel like my usual self. Brie can tell but we don't talk about it. Especially today more than ever have I felt like all of this is is just not far, why should a 13 year be dealing with this when most adults can't even deal with situations like this. School was done for the day so me and Brie walk to the elementary school to pick up JJ and walk home. Finally I can be alone.

"Can you take JJ down to the basement to do his homework and give him a snack, please?" I look right at Brie with sadness written all over my face. She nods as I walk up to my room and lock the door and just crumble. I start to talk to myself aloud.

"GOD, why Nicole, why? This isn't far anymore I don't want this I want my normal life back please I can't do this anymore someone please save me. I'm so young and not ready for this. I still want to be a kid, not become a mother figure. Please Pop-pop stop get me out of this I want to be happy like the old little Coco was. You need to save me and mom too, she just isn't the same I want everything to go back to the way it was when I had a smile on all the time. Please just please." At this point I was a sobbing mess laying on the floor not moving and especial not wanting to move from where I was. I laid there for a long time as the sun went down and the room became dark and all that light it up was the light from the street lights outside. When I finally went down to cook dinner for my siblings and mom. But when I got down there I wasn't expecting to see that it was all ready done.

Brianna's POV:  It feels good to know that I'm not the only one who is alone in this house who is going through this pain that I have my sister by my side. She has really been stepping up and being the leader in holding this family together. We do feel alone and like we do the wrong things but we realize it's the only thing we can do if we want to make sure that we will all be together and no one separates us. Once Nikki and I talked about what has been going on we both have been doing great things except for today. She just wasn't herself, granted she hasn't been herself for moths now but today she certainly was not her new self. We got home and she asked me to watch JJ which I was not gonna say no since our mom was not even home she was still at work so I did as she asked me to. Me and JJ finished our homework and snack ad decided to play a few games, after a while Nikki wasn't coming down to check on us. So I put the TV on for him so I can go see what she was doing. When I went up the stairs from the basement I saw my mom sitting at the kitchen counter with her glass of wine, I snuck past her not wanting her to see me just because I was more concerned about Nikki at the moment. I made my way to the hallway and when I put my ear to our bedroom door I heard her talking to herself and crying. She was just pleading that someone saved us, and it crushed me. I cracked open the door to see what she was doing and I see her laying there. Thank god she wasn't doing something irrational. I closed the door slowly making sure she didn't hear me. I get downstairs to the kitchen and start to make dinner and get JJ fed along with mom because Nikki needed the time to be alone, she deserves it out of all of us. Once everyone was done I made myself and Nikki a plate and put JJ to bed and made sure mom was on the couch. Then I hear her come in to see me sitting there alone.

"I made you a plate, it's in the microwave." I say reinsurance her that she does not have to worry it's been done. She grabs the plate and comes to sit next to me. That's when I finally decided to,tell,her that I know she isn't ok. "Nicole, why didn't you just tell me you wanted to be alone and cry?"

"How did you know I was crying?" She looks at me like I can't tell from her eyes that are some what puffy or that she has a raspy voice and stuffed up nose. Other than that I saw her with my own eyes.

"Well after hours of you not coming down I decided to go up and check on you. I was worried. I let you be because it's ok to cry you feel refreshed afterwards." I hold her hand and a small yet simple smile appears from her face.

"Thank you for understanding me. Was JJ good for you? Did all his homework that he had?" Hearing my sister talk like a mom hurts me, that's not her job. That is our mothers job. But we need to be this way because if we aren't then everything will just fall apart.

"He was great. We finished everything and he was so excited to show me that he got a one-hundred on his spelling test." She light up when she heated that, if on,y mom was like that again.

"I'm so proud of him. We studied so hard all last week on those words so he could become spelling king this week. Now we have to make it two weeks haha." We cleaned our plates in the sink and started the dishwasher, locked up a den went to bed since today was a long day. We never spoke again about this night. Day after day Nikki would come home and spend hours in our room alone. It makes me so mad that my mom doesn't even realize what is going on she is so clueless to this situation that it aggravates me. I can't speak to anyone about it because I know if I do than something will change in this house that none of us want to happen. Gosh if only my mom could snap out of it, but what will finally make her snap back into reality to see what she has caused us?