A Child Broken

Chapter 8

Despite the fact that tiff was gone everyone was still managing to carry on just enough to get by. Two weeks had gone by since her death and we all were grieving in different ways. The funeral was coming up, we were barely ready. I think it was hard because it was an official goodbye. It meant she was really gone, she was really dead.

We didn't know how to accept that. Especially mom she was having the worst time of all she had starting drinking and we didn't know how to stop her. She would get drunk and complain about tiff being gone and how much she missed her. Of coarse we had all we could to keep it together because at that point me and Sarah really only had each other.

I remember one night that mom was drunk. Sarah and I were in my room and we heard loud crashing come from downstairs, so I told Sarah to wait in the room while I ran downstairs. I was running down the stairs and as I looked just over the banister and saw mom sprawled out on the kitchen floor. My first reaction was to run over and see if she was okay, but when I went over to her up she pushed me away. She threw my hand off of her arm.

"What's wrong mom?"

"Don't act all nice like that!" She snapped back at me.

"Well sorry I was just checking on you!"

"I don't need anybody's help especially not yours!!"

"What is that supposed to mean, especially not mine?"

"You did this!"

As soon as the words left her lips I could see the look of regret on her face. Drunk or not she knew it was something she shouldn't have said.

"Oh wow really. Is that how you want to play this? Because I can play like that. I didn't have any cause in her self harming before she died. She didn't even know me when she started. And I'm not saying it was you or what happened before she got here but it sure as hell wasn't me!"

"Oh really when she found out you did it it pushed her over the edge. So why did you have to start now? Huh?"

"It wouldn't have mattered if I started earlier or later at some point she would have found out!"

"So why did you do it?!?"

"You're seriously gonna question me about this because I don't think it's any of your business."

"How is it not my business you had this hideous habit and right under my roof!"

"So you didn't cause it, so why does it matter?"

"Oh so someone caused it, who was it?"

"Are you sobering up or just want to dig into my awful personal history?"

All I got back from her was a cold look.

"Fine you want to know why? You really want to know why?"

"Yeah that's why I asked you Savanah use your brain!"

"Ugh ok it's because I was raped when I was little, okay? Over and over again by my mom's druggy boyfriend while my mom got high in the other room. And I was just a terrified little girl begging for a way out. I prayed and prayed that they would break up, but they never did. I would cry myself to sleep at night after he would leave my bedroom. You have no idea the feeling of losing your innocence when you're too young to even know what innocence means! I can't begin to explain to you the feeling I got in the pit of my stomach every time I heard the door knob to my room creak open. But after a while I got pretty used to it. That didn't not make it okay though. I was violated and and diminished by a man that I later killed. And in the same day found my biological mother dead hanging from a ceiling fan. So when tiff came home with multiple personality disorder and she took in the stories I told her about my past life, in confidence by the way and turned them into her own. The scared little girl she was was me when I was younger and she was going to tell everyone about my awful, awful old life. It got to me maybe just a little bit and that pushed me over the edge, okay mother, that pushed me over the edge. You're lucky I'm even still here and I have the strength to get through my disastrous life. Not saying tiff wasn't strong enough but at least you only have one daughter gone and not two!"

By that time I was panting and trying to catch my breath from all the yelling I had just done. I regretted telling her the moment the words had starting flowing but I couldn't stop them. I realized I was crying when the salty tears trickled there way into my nose and mouth. My face was burning hot and I was shaking vigorously. I slowly looked up at mom and she just stood there with a blank stare.

"Well are you going to say something because I'm already regretting telling you."

"Yeah..oh..uhhmm..uh... I'm sorry I wish I would've known so I could've helped you."

"How, how were you going to help me there was no helping me! Mom I've had therapy, I've had medications it doesn't work, nothing works. This is an awful life everyone lives and death is inevitable at some point in all of our lives. So everyone is gonna have trouble in their lifetime and it's never going to be okay. No one is ever going to be okay, EVER!"

After I said that I ran back upstairs passing Sarah on the way up. When I got to my room I slammed the door as hard as I could. But I started thinking about what I had just done all she did was say she wanted to help but she couldn't help. Didn't she understand she couldn't help. There was just no helping me at all.