Can't Get Over You

Chapter 19

DRAKE'S Story

"Mom, please! Let us go back to grandma's place." Drake begged to his eating mother. She just gave him a glance as response then continued her food as if she didnt heard a thing.

"Tss," He clicked his tongue, pushed back the chair then stood up, "I'm full, thank you for the food." he said then walked back to his room.

When he entered the room he immediately shut the door behind him

~~~
FLASHBACK

"What kind of house is this? They don't even know how to sweep the floor." Drake grunted as he swift the floor with the broom. "The ceiling's full of cobwebs. Do people really live in this house?" he sighed.

Drake was busy tidying up the house that day since he's too lazy to go to their shop. It's midweek so there will only be few to none people coming in to get their cars checked.

"That'll do!" He said as he arranged the pillows on the couch and then the curtains behind it. "Next is their rooms." He headed towards his mothers room and was suprised by the tidiness of the room but he noticed the unsual number of bottles of medicine under the bed and at the top of the cabinet.

He walked closer to the cabinet and tried to read the label but he only found a date written on it that seemed to be either manufacturing date or expiration date. The rest of the bottle has the same writings but different dates.

Drake got curious as to what does his mother need all this amount of medicines for. The number of bottles can sum up to years worth. And on the day after his arrival he saw the backyard with a few boxes of it too.

Due to curiosity he took a few tablets off the bottle and put it in his pocket. He knew someone inside the hospital so he'll send it later for her to examine what is the medicine really is for.

A week after his friend called and told him that it was a type of an anti- depressant drug with a very strong effect to the patient  that the state forbid them to prescribe it to the patients in need.

This shocked Drake and left him stunned. The past events concerning his brothers's unusual bruises and his sister's scars seemed to be related to all this.

He felt sicken by the thought that it is their own mother that was hurting his own siblings. "I have to get them away from here." He thought to himself.

~~~

Drake was startled by the knock on his door, "Drake, honey can we talk?" her mother, Thearese asked as she entered the room and sat on the bed.

"Mom, it has been a month since I left grandma there. She's old and she needs me. And I want my three siblings to be with her in her last days here on earth." Drake started, frustration swelling up in his chest.

"But I need you here too. I'm your family Drake. For heaven's sake! Think about me for once!" Thearese shouted back. She was taken a back when she realized that she has raised her voice on him.

Drake was just staring at her with a blank face. This was the first time her mother raised a voice on him so it caught him off guard. He just returned to what he was doing a while ago-- packing his things.

Her mother slowly approached him and grabbed his shoulders then gently wrapped her arms around him.
"I'm sorry Drake. I'm just scared to lose you too. Your father has been missing for years and you've been gone for a year or two too. So I don't know what I should do anymore. Your brothers and sister, Justine, Jesse and Billy, they're too young when they lose their father and you played that role for them. I don't want them to feel the same agony I've been feeling for years now. Please Drake, I'm begging you, now that you're here, please dont leave us again."

Drake stopped what he was doing then turned to face his crying mother. "Don't be like that mom. Grandma was the one who supported us when we discovered that father has gone missing and left us with so much debts. She was the one who provided this house and that shop to us. It was the only right thing to give her the support she has once given us back to her. It's our time to pay her back for what she did to us."

"I know!" she sobbed then hugged him tighter. "I never had once forgotten what she's done for us. We owe our lives to her. But I need you here Drake. I'm tired of dying every night thinking that we're not sleeping under the same roof. I'm tired of breaking down every now and then because I lost your father. I'm tired of it all. You're my only strength, the force that drives me to wake up every morning."

Drake straightened up. Emotions were drained in him when he heard his mothers last words. "Is that the reason why you started taking those drugs?" He said in a very cold voice. Her mother immediately pulled away from him then stood up. "What.. How... Why..." Thearese stuttered.

"I found them under your bed when I cleaned the house last week. And it's not just a bottle, there are tons of it else where." He said staring like a dead to her mother, lifeless, emotionless.

"I... I needed them Drake! I swear I never once thought of using it before. I just can't handle the pain anymore so I ask a friend for help and he told me to us those to ease my pain." Her mother said defending herself.

"HE?" Drake stood up and walked slowly towards her mother standing at the corner. He grabbed her shoulders and asked with a low and angry tone, "Who is this he?"

"Ah" she winced. "It hurts, Drake. Let me go." She pleaded but he just tightened his grip. "Who gave you those drugs, Mom!?". He stared intensely in her eyes but she refused to speak a word about it.

"He'll be in danger if I were to tell you so I won't" Thearese said with a firm voice though she was shaking.

He clicked his tongue when his mom refused to talk and punched the door of this room. "Are you fvcking kiddong me mom? You think I didn't notice those fresh bruises on Jesse's body when I first came here? You think I wouldn't see the scars on Justine's body? Or here Billy's plea when he talks in his sleep? I'm not an idiot mom. You're just out of your mind to neglect them and now you're telling me you need me? But then, why did you took those drugs? Dont you love us anymore?"

It hurts him so well to see his mother like this, like a scared cat soaked by the rain and chilling to death. He paced back and forth in the room. His mother stepped back and pushed herself to the corner, and slowly slide to slumped to the floor then started weeping.

...

"I'm ... soooo sorry Drake."

...

"I was badly broken and shattered to pieces every
time I think that I had lost your father forever."

...

"I love your father so much that I spent my whole life to turn the dreams he once had into a beautiful reality"

...

"But reality is harsh. Life is unfair."

...

"... gone" she stared into nothing with tears flowing down to her cheeks.

"He's not coming back to us, Drake."

Drake fell into a deep silent while her mother was still crying her heart out. It went on for minutes before Drake broke the silence between them.

"I'm taking my siblings with me to grandma. I can't live with you here anymore and all the more reasong I can't leave them here to YOU."

"Fix yourself mom, before you lose the family you still have. I can't take it seeing you like this and imagining that my siblings has seen worse than this."

"Goodbye mom." and with that Drake zipped his bag, took it, then left the room.

All that's left was the distant voice that can be heard from the outside of the room. It was the kids' voice yellingnin excitement as they all went out of the house. Seconds later the sound of an engine roared and then it went totally silent.

The kids was gone together with Drake and their mother was left on her own, sobbing and broken.

~~~~~~~~~
END.