The Hurt

Chapter 1

I awoke to the sound of sirens. It was like someone had just sounded off a blow horn in my ear. I groggily got out of bed to look out the window and I saw an ambulance and two police cars. Scared, I ran into my sister’s room to wake her up, but she was already up and crying on her bed.

“Melissa, why are you crying?” I asked.

“It’s mommy… She’s- she’s dead,” she said between sobs.

I told her that I would be right back as I ran down the stairs to find my brother sitting outside the open door on the steps, head in his hands. I stopped to see my mother’s body wheeled out on the gurney by two paramedics. My brother’s eyes followed them as they passed.  I stopped them.

“Can I see her face? Before you take her away?” I asked, trying not to cry. The paramedics nodded and I slowly peeled back the white blanket, almost afraid of what I might see.  Tears began to roll down my cheeks as more of her face was reveled.

She looked pale, as would any corpse.  But there was something about her face that wasn’t like her. It was as if she was at peace. She was finally free from the drugs and alcohol. She was free from the addictions that filled her life with so much misery and pain. I was happy for her but I just wish she had stopped before it killed her. Sure, she wasn’t the perfect mother, but whose are these days?

By this time Jake and Melissa joined me. We all stared at our dead mother… What were we going to do without her? Dad left when I was barely a year old, and we needed a larger source of income rather than my brother’s part time job. Things were about to get a lot more difficult and I just hope we can stay together.

                                                                              *           *           *

“Jessica. Jessica Stewart, wake up this instant! Jessica!”

I lifted my head and looked around, wondering who disturbed my recreation of that tragic night and then I realized I was in class... Not good. I was pulled out of my recollection of the past by my teacher and let me tell you, she didn’t look happy. I rubbed my eyes and apologized. Then I explained how I got little sleep last night.

“Save your excuses. Principals office, now!” She sneered as she pointed to the door.

I sighed, grabbed my books and left the for Mrs. Jacobs office. I could hear my classmates laughing when I left the room.  It was only October and I’ve fallen asleep 4 times in class. I needed to get my game together if I was to make it through grade 10.

As I walked down the hallway, with my hall pass in hand and my other hand brushing the lockers I thought of my dream. Or should I say memory. I’ve been haunted since that day. I’ve tried so hard to avoid sleeping just so I wouldn’t have to relive that moment over and over again. But that is clearly not working.

It has been almost five years since my mother died from the overdose. To be honest it didn’t hurt as much as her being alive and paying little to no attention to my sister and me. One way of looking at it is that I had lost her, but in reality I had lost her 7 years before that. I truly lost her when her boyfriend, who is also the biological father to my little sister, introduced her to the cause of her death. Heroin. Once she was addicted there was no turning back. She spent all of our money on it. The only reason we didn’t starve was because of my older brother, Jake. Since I was only three when the addiction got really bad, I didn’t fully understand why my mother was never home and why she never fed us.

I remember asking Jake ‘why is mommy never home?’  I never got a real answer and only now do I realize how hard it must have been for him to explain to a three year old that your mother is addicted to drugs and spends every penny she makes on it.