The Soul Mate. (Kellic.)

Chapter 12.

*Back to Kellin’s POV*

I started from the time I was four and I first saw my dad hit my mom. I was somewhat intuitive and I knew exactly what had just happened. I ran over in front of my mom, my scrawny four-year-old body no match for my father’s, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t just watch my mommy get hurt. From then on, I was more of a threat to my father than my mother was. She wouldn’t stand up to him, but I would, even as young as I was. My mother taught me how to cover bruises, but as far as the abuse went, she never really cared what happened to me. The makeup was just saving her and dad’s asses.

When my dad left, my mom was heartbroken. She picked up and we moved to the outskirts of San Diego. Half the time, she was drunk or high, and the other half was spent between looking for a job and making my life hell.

She blamed me for everything, from dad leaving to her spilling a glass of wine or forgetting where her house key was. At six, I learned when to avoid her and when to be out of the house. I was in an alley when I met Jesse. Him and his mother were walking, and his mother saw me. She was terrified, asking where my mother was and if I was okay. I made up a lie about how I just took walks at night and my house was just around the block. Her son was way too interested in me for her liking, so she quickly took her son away and wished me a polite good night. The next week in school, there was a new student. Jesse, of course. He had moved from around the same area of Michigan that I had, and yet we never crossed paths. From then on, we were practically inseparable. His parents hated me, but he didn’t care. He found bruises on me one day that my mother carelessly left in plain sight and I ended up telling him everything. Soon, it was me and him, only seven and eight, against the world. He was there through everything with me, from the time I came out, through my depression and my mother and family issues, he never left. There wasn’t anything about me he couldn’t handle.

One night when I was fifteen, I was in my bed, nearly asleep, when my mom barged in with another guy, both obviously drunk and very high, with cigarettes and lighters in hand. By this point, I had just started cutting, so there wasn’t much but a couple of scratches lined neatly on my wrist, too parallel to be an accident. I normally just slept with boxers on, so when my mom pulled the covers off my bed, she saw the marks. And she laughed.

"Ahh, the poor thing. He’s been through so much and now he wants to hurt himself.” She slurred, sarcasm dripping off her tongue. “Well, if you’re gonna do that to yourself, let us help you.” She pressed her cigarette into my arm just above the cuts I had made, before grabbing her boy toy’s and putting it out on me as well.

For the rest of that night, they spent their time lighting different parts of me on fire, laughing all the while. I couldn’t move the next day, and Jesse had to sneak into my room with a bucket of ice for my burns.

Now, after my mother found this interesting bit out about me, she encouraged me to do it. She bought me blades and gave me lighters. She just wanted me dead. For that sole reason, she hated Jesse’s, and eventually Sarah’s, existences. Sometimes my mom would come in my room and cut me herself. When I had to go to the hospital after suicide attempts, she sat at home, claiming to the hospital she couldn’t stand to see me like that, waiting for them to call with “Bad news.” Every time I returned, she yelled at me some more and hit me. The beatings or whatever pain she inflicted on my body were always worse when she yelled at me. She only yelled when she had gone off the deep end, which explained why yelling scared me so much. Sometimes I couldn’t even handle concerts where people would scream for the bands. I had to go back to the tour bus and calm down before returning.

There were times when my mom snuck into my room, always with a different man, always drunk out of their minds, with cigarettes and lighters in hand, just like the first time. It was a tradition that was erratic and unpredictable, so a lot of nights, even now, I only slept for a couple of hours. The sleep was always light. I trained myself to be woken up by the smallest noises and movements. If Vic turned in bed or Tony was snoring, I was up for the rest of the night. I was so used to protecting myself I found it hard to believe this wasn’t normal and I shouldn’t do this.