7 Mile

Chapter 10

Mom got into my car while having a coughing episode, cradling some hand luggage. She looked real ill, worn to the bone, probably from all the damn drink taking it's toll on her.
But I ain't felt no sympathy. When I was ill as a kid she would dose me up on adult medication and lock me up in my room. I tightened my hand around the steering wheel at the bitter thought,

"Marshall, son... thank you for doing this"

"Alright" I grunted, waiting for some car to pass so that I could pull out,

"I miss you, son" I kept my eyes firmly on the road, clenching my jaw to stop me flipping out on her. Miss me? She didn't fucking miss me when she booted me out the house? She never missed my ass when I asked to come back home and cause she was too busy fucking some other dude I couldn't stay over. She also didn't miss me whenever I called the house and she would wild out on my ass, calling me selfish for trying to make a life with Kim while she struggled alone with Nate, saying I was the monster for leaving her to struggle, struggle? She couldn't fucking cope because she was drinking all her damn money away and buying half the damn pharmacy for symptoms of shit she would make up in her head. She'd lost the plot, all the neighbours turned their backs on her cause she would keep on ringing the police on them, saying they were all spying on her and Nathan so that they could report her to CPS,
"Honey, please talk to me"

"I don't wanna talk right now"

"I want to make things right between us"

"Mom... please"

"I am so sorry, for everything. I really need my son right now, and I do love you, so much"

"I'm only here for Nathan"

"I... I may be really ill"

"Oh like me? With all the fucking bullshit you fed me? Always pulling me in to see doctors cause you thought I was fucked up? But you didn't once stop to think that maybe I was just going through a rough fucking time being pulled from state to state? It's cause of you i was socially awkward as shit! It's cause of you moving me around that I could never settle, anytime I actually made a couple friends you'd rip me out of that place and we'd be back on the road. You fucked me up! You didn't stop to think that this was all cause of you? Or did you just not wanna believe you destroyed me so you blamed it on me being born with all sorts of fucked up illnesses? Huh?"

"You do have asperges! You was diagnosed by the doctors!"

"Bullshit!! You read up on all that shit and fed 'em fucking lies on the symptoms you claimed I had! I don't take medication now do I and look at me! I'm doing fine!"

"Marshall stop! Stop this!"

"Yea cause when it comes to facing up to all the bullshit you can't face it can you? You wanna drop the facts cause it's sick what you done did to me!"

"Look at your damn medical history! They will tell you!"

"Münchausen by proxy syndrome, that's what the fuck I been dealing with"

"What?"

"Oh? You don't know what that is huh? It's a form of damn child abuse. Where the parent of the kid fabricates illnesses, fakes up symptoms to make it look like their child's sick. That's what you damn did to me all the goddamn time! Always making up bullshit to the doctors and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, cause why? Cause there was nothing wrong with me that's why! I was a normal kid, you couldn't deal with me so you fed me medication to slow me down, so that you could deal with your hangovers!"

"That's ridiculous and you know it!"

"Is it?! You do it to yourself! You always go on about being ill! You fucking thrive off people pitying you! But it ain't never just the flu, it's always something fucking big and dramatic! You're just a fucking drug taking drunk! Ain't nothing wrong with you but addiction!"