Prologue:
There were times it was obvious that our mother was no longer with us. She wasn’t dead, which we were thankful for, but we often believed life would be easier if she was. I was already twelve years old by the time I realized my mom was on a one-way trip to crazy town.
Being the youngest, my older siblings, Layla and Keegan, had tried their best to keep me away when mother would go into one of her fits. As I grew older, Keegan moved away for college, and Layla began her senior year, trying to prepare me for the next four years with our mom.
“Bethany come here,” Layla yells to me from her room. I always enjoyed being in Layla’s room, although it was nothing like mine, something about it seemed to intrigue me. On the walls were dozens of letters from her long time boyfriend, and perfectly laid out on the bed was a sapphire blanket, about the size of a pillow, that always seemed as if it had never been touched.
I knew why my sister was calling me in her room, just by what time it was. Anytime Layla or Keegan would call me in their rooms early in the morning it was to warn me about our mother’s current mood. Just like countless mornings before, Layla informed me that our mom was in an awful mood, and it would be wise to avoid her at all costs, so that’s what I did.
For one last year I relied on Layla to give me the heads up about our mother, but her graduation came quickly. Before I knew it I was facing all of the challenges my brother and sister had gone through all those years before just for me, and it was killing me…
