My Will To Live

CHAPTER 5- Left Alone

I got in the car and quickly put on my seat belt. I am never taking chances . Not with these two in the car. It is never safe to end up in a car with an alcoholic and an easily irritable woman who takes out her anger on you . You never know what will happen next.

"Did you tell anyone, Margie?"

"No."

"Good."

Awkward silence then passes between me and my family . Suddenly I see black spots cloud across my vision, and my eye lids feel as heavy as lead. All of a sudden my head droops and I find myself whisked off into a dream...

"Alice? Could you come here please?" Mom is calling my younger sister, Alice.

"Sure mom!" My younger sister says.

"It's Margie's birthday today! Lets make her a surprise cake!"

"Ok!"

Little did they know I was watching .

It's my birthday. Mom has surprised me with the cake . Dad isn't home yet but mom just assumes he's working late, and she says that he'll never ever forget the birthday of his special daughter .

"Mommy, does daddy think I'm special too?"

"Of course he does , Alice."

The door opens, and my dad comes in, and he's drunk. He catches sight of the cake on the table.

"Happy birthday Margie." He slurs.

I back off, not sure what to say because my dad is acting weird today. It was the day he lost his job. It was the day all the abuse started. And a year later, it was the day my sister left me. It was the day my mom burst into the room after my dad had already beat me and scolded me because I had apparently ignored his gesture, and my mom came in and scolded me and whipped me. It seemed that everything bad happened on my birthday.

Wait what? Today was my birthday.

I'm thirteen years old now. Taylor Swift'a lucky number. Maybe something good would finally happen to me. I snap out of my dream world to realise that we are pulling up to some dirty looking bar. A bar where kids my age can't go to. At all.

My mom and dad both get out. My father switches off the air conditioner but leaves the key in the engine. He and mom both go off into the bar. He's forgotten about me. As usual. Something strange is happening. The air here is getting harder to breathe.

It isn't long before the coughing begins.

Not that hard at first, soft, gentle, like I'm clearing my throat. Then harder. Harder and harder, throwing my body forward. My breathing is raspy. What's going on? I ask myself. Then my brain grows foggy. My eyelids feel like they're made of lead. Every breath I draw in is painful. Black dances across my vision. I feel foggy and giddy, like the world is spinning in circles in slow motion. Then I realise. I'm breathing in poisonous air.

I fumble through the fog in my brain. Somewhere along my fingers grab hold of the handle, and I jingle it until the door suddenly opens, and I fall with a loud thud onto the floor. I am vaguely aware that my head is throbbing. It feels like a sleep headache, something you get from sleeping too long. Then the pain suddenly speeds up and bursts forth in my brain, and it feels like firecrackers and a hammer are exploding and banging on my head respectively.

It's hard to draw in breath even now. I'm coughing really hard as I lay sprawled out on the floor, and my heart is going too fast. I try to breathe again but it doesn't work. I cough and I cough and I cough, trying my best to take in air, when suddenly bile travels up my throat. Even though I think I don't even have strength left, my body throws itself forward, and I retch. It leaves my throat painful and sore, and me tired, weak and defenseless. Still, I do my best to crawl forwards, gasping for air as I do so, because there must be help somewhere. I don't know how far I crawl, all I know is that I am like a blind horse, fixed solely on its destination.

If I even knew where I was going.

I think I must have been crawling for thirty minutes when a voice broke into the fog. Just in time too, because I was already on the verge if blacking out.

"Excuse me? Are you alright?" The voice asked as I faded into unconsciousness.

My very last thought was, "Dear God, just let me die here and now. I don't care about life anymore. I don't even care about making friends or Taylor Swift or whatever. Just let me die. I deserve it. It's what my parents say. Guess they're right."

I'd never backed down from my parents, my goal was to keep on living , to go to college. But right then I was exhausted and tired, and I was sick of life in general, and so, I finally broke down.

I let my parents decide who I am.