Indiana has been my refuge for 14 months.
After revelations making life almost impossible to live back in Ohio, I decided that it was time to ditch the bottle and make something out of my then, 21 year old self. I enrolled into a partial boarding school programme, learnt the ways of the world once more, and designed a respectable future for myself.
The thing that I was most proud of wasn't that I ditched my problems and started anew. It wasn't that I had created an actual future for myself. It wasn't even that I broke out of my alcohol driven trance. It was that I left that damned state altogether, and from there on in, I did everything singlehandedly.
Sometimes I cannot believe that I began again, that I truly made something out of myself. If anyone back in Ohio heard that I turned myself around and did a complete 180, they'd call you a bare faced liar.
Life wasn't perfect, but it sufficed. I knew a few cool guys, I had a stable job and I had recently applied to some of the top universities around. I saw the world in a different way, and I had a new attitude towards things.
Here in Indiana, I was respected by the few people who knew me. They didn't have to, or need to, know about my past. All they knew was that I wanted to start over, and that's what I did. That's enough for them, and that's enough for me.
As yesterday marked the closing of the month, it meant that a new one began today.
At the beginning of every month, my mother and I share a phone call at 9pm, updating each other of the events the previous month held. This was one of the terms that my mother put in place when I made the move to Indiana, as well as the fact that her fancy new husband covers the cost of the apartment charges.
I usually recite the same things, mentioning how things are going well and that I am healthy. My mother informs me of the milestones Auden, my half-brother, has reached and how I should come and visit sometime.
I love Auden, I do. When he first came along, it was nice to see my mother truly happy and content with her new life. But as Auden grew and grew, I realised that that was the thing. This was her new life. In that moment I decided that it was time to create my new life, my new beginning. Maybe I chose this selfishly, because I wanted this new start for myself, but a part of me was aware that maybe, just maybe, I was doing this to show my mother and brother that I was worthy of being in their lives.
Kathleen Thomson was a loving woman, who always put others before herself. I am a living and breathing example of this. But as the nights grew longer, leaving me with more and more time to convince myself that I didn't fit into my mother's new life, I turned to things, to people, that helped the dragging days become more manageable. The once sweet boy turned aggressive and self-centred, leaving no permanent spaces for anyone in his life, because he believed that he couldn't be permanent in anyone else's.
I never return back 'home', back to Ohio, because I didn't feel the need to. Mum was well, Auden was well, hell, even Gregg was well.
My life was centered in Indiana now and it was where I belonged, for it was where my job lied, and where my future would follow.
I reach the apartment building, provide my ID to the security at the front desk and proceed to entering my room. I kick off my shoes as I enter and chuck them into the basket of shoes that was situated next to the front door. My bag follows, being placed beside the cream basket, and I proceed to sit on the sofa and make the regular, monthly phone call.
An unfamiliar voice welcomes me, presenting herself to be a part-time carer for my mother, named Lana. She mentions how she realises that this is the number for Kathleen's son, and how the "treatment has worn Kathleen out today as the dosage was increased", and ends the one-sided phone call by saying how she doesn't have time to inform me on anything else but how she would "happily pass on any messages to my mother tomorrow".
All I can do it sit there, confused and bewildered as I never knew my own mother needed treatment.
I never knew that she was sick.
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I have always wanted to write a story, so here goes. If anyone reading can vote and comment, that would be fantastic. I hope everyone enjoys reading.
All my love X
