The love of a man

Going up in flames

{Levi POV}

I set the tea down on the coffee table. Eren and I had moved to my living room and were snuggling on the couch. I lay my head in his lap and drape his arm over my chest, hoping it will comfort me as I tell my story. I sigh.
"Whenever you're ready, love" Eren says, moving a piece of hair out of his eyes. ' God, I love him so fucking much' I think as I stare into his beautiful green eyes. I begin my story. "Well, I suppose I should start off by telling you my mother was an alcoholic. My dad was as well. They drank for different reasons. My mom drank to mollify the pain she constantly felt from my scumbag of a dad. My dad drank just because of the alcoholism. He didn't have a reason, he just wanted to do it. I grew up in a shitty trailer park, everything was falling apart and the yard was a wasteland of dirt and broken toys. I Never really talked to anyone. My dad would experiment with different drugs and when my mom was out working he would have hookers and prostitutes come over to the house. He would lock me in my room and tell me to be a good boy and play with my toys. I remember one day, when I was about thirteen, I threatened to tell mom and he threw me up against a wall and slapped me in the mouth. He said that if I ever told her that he would kill both of us, and I believed that piece of shit. That night I snuck out the window, knowing that my mom was working a graveyard shift and that my dad would be partying all night. It was cold and I didn't have a sweater. I started crying, wishing death upon my father. I heard a small voice squeak from the bushes and turned towards it, that was the first time I had ever met Erwin smith. He asked me if I was cold and ran over to me with a blanket that he had already had with him. He invited me to his tree house. He was 16 and a lot bigger than me but I felt safe. Safer than I did in my own home at least. He let me sleep up there, the tree house was rather used. He had a mattress and a space heater going from an extension cord to the house. He told me that every time I felt like I as in danger to come up here and hide. And it ended up saving my life."
I stop and take a breath. Eren is running his fingers through my hair again like he always does. I close my eyes and enjoy the feeling for a few seconds. I don't want to look at Eren. I feel so ashamed and I don't want to see the look on his face. What if he's disgusted with me? I open my eyes and look up at him. His eyes are full of love and the formation of tears are beginning to emerge. I give him a sad smile and continue. "Erwin and I eventually became inseparable. Nothing stopped happening but at least now I knew I had somewhere to go. Anyway, my mom was ignorant to the fact that my father was constantly cheating. It was almost like she knew but at the same time believed that he would never do that. Her concept of love was so fucked up, for her to think that he loved her or even me was the biggest mistake she ever made. But I knew my mom loved me. She did everything she could to keep my fathers anger away from me and directed at her instead. She sacrificed herself time and time again for me. But sometimes it wasn't enough. He still beat me along with her on occasion, but not as badly. Not until I got older and a bit stronger. Sometimes he would 'wrestle' with me, which consisted of him throwing me to the floor and nearly suffocating me or sucker punching me in the stomach a couple times as hard at he could. But he never did anything that would leave a mark, and I wouldn't tell my mom when she came home from work. Most of the time she was to drunk and exhausted to do anything. Three years past before it happened. Erwin was 19 years old and planning to go to college that year. I was 16 and still had a year of high school left. Erwin had been accepted into a very prestigious university and only had about a month left of being home."
I feel my eyes start to sting, tears welling up. I grit my teeth and sit up. Placing my head in my hands I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to get the images of fire out of my head. Eren wraps his arms around my waist and leans his head on my shoulder "Levi, I love you. " he says, trying to distract my thoughts. I lift my head and take a shaky breath. I lean into him and plant a kiss on his cheek. He smiles at me and I feel a bit of strength build up in me, so I continue. " My mom came home early one night and my dad didn't know she had. I saw her car pull up from my room. She walked in the door to see a hooker bouncing on my dad on our living room couch while another one sat in the corner shooting up. I walked out of my room when the screaming started. I saw my mom pull the slut off my dad and drag her out the door and the other one was so high on whatever she had that she had just passed out. Mom was screaming at my dad, she had already been drinking, so her words were slurred. I watched her grasp the bottles of alcohol that my dad had out and she poured them all over him and on the floor. She ran out the door and came back in with the can of gasoline we used for the grill and lawnmower. She poured it every where. I ran into my room and started gathering pictures and some childhood stuffed animals. I grabbed every picture and letter my mom had given me and I was uncontrollably crying and searching for everything that meant something to me. Everything that had a happy memory, because I knew the place was gonna burn. What I didn't know was how she would do it. The screaming continued as I jumped out my window and went to the tree house to put my stuff there. As I ran to it I heard a loud sound in the background but didnt pay much attention to it. After I outd my stuff away, I ran back and climbed through the window to a still silence. No screaming, nothing. Just the soft sobbing of my drunken mother. I just froze, eren, I couldn't move."
I'm still leaning into eren and tears are streaming down my face. I can feel a lump in my throat as the images of my burning home and and spatters of blood pass through my mind. A sob escapes my throat and a flood of tears surges down my cheeks. " my mom knocked on my door and then opened it. I remember staring at her, my eyes wide as plates. She had blood splattered on the front of her wrinkled white work shirt. She had worked in an office filing papers. She held her hand out to me and said 'come with me Levi, your dad won't be able to hurt us anymore'. I grabbed her hand and she pulled me into a hug. I felt scared, like something worse was coming. My mom guided me out of the house and when I tried to look back she had covered my eyes and said don't look, but I saw. His eyes were wide open and blood was dripping out of a hole in his head. I had no clue how she could have done something like that, I couldn't think of anything in the house that could cause such a wound. I didn't even consider a gun. We went outside and my mom told me to stay by the fence. I stood there, waiting while she went back in. She ran out and I could see flames licking the ceiling of our living room. I heard sirens in the distance and my mom came towards me with a blank expression on her face. I had caught a glimpse of the revolver in her hand as she walked towards me. I didn't know what she was going to do. The cops were coming and I was terrified of losing her. I ran into her arms and hugged her and sobbed about not wanting her to go to prison. She had stroked my hair and and told me that we would never be apart. And then, I felt something hard and cold press against my temple. My mom sobbed and told me that she loved me. I jerked away from her and she screamed 'no, Levi! Stay with me, my baby, please!' She had a hard grip on my arm, and I was trying to pull away, but I was weak. The sirens were getting closer and she had turned to look, I took my chance and broke away. I sprinted as fast as I could to the treehouse. I got there within a minute. Erwin was waiting for me. He latched the door and I watched out the window as my mom ran around the blazing trailer home. She made her way back to the front and the cops had pulled up. I saw her collapse to her knees. The officers had their weapons drawn and I watched as my mom slowly brought the revolver up to her head. She yelled something at the cops, and pulled the trigger. I couldn't feel a thing. I went completely numb. Erwin caught me as I fell to the floor. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Erwin carrying me out to the ambulance and my childhood home collapsing in a rage of revengeful flames. Later, after I regained conciousness, there was a policeman there, waiting to ask me questions. The first thing I asked him was what my mom yelled at them."
I wipe my eyes, feeling a new wave of tears rising as I remember the last words that my mom ever said.
" she had said ' tell my son, Levi , that I love him'. Those were the last words from my mothers mouth before she killed herself. I will never forgive my father for what he did, and sometimes, I wish I would have died with her. Now I'm glad I didn't." I say, taking eren's hand. Tears are rushing down his cheeks and he takes me into a hug, sobbing on my shoulder. I squeeze him and nuzzle my face into his warm neck. I close my eyes and weep with him.
'Thank you mom' I think ' thank you for guiding me to him'.