Away (COMPLETED)

Chapter One - Home

It's not easy. Living with parents like mine. My mother is a strong alcoholic, while my Father is always out working, or cheating on my mother while she's too drunk to care. But then there's me, Tracey Muir, sad and alone without any support or friends. I have nobody to talk with and it's getting harder each day. Sometimes I feel like running away from this living nightmare that is supposed to be my home. I don't want to feel that way because I think it would push my mother over the edge and make her problem a lot worse if I just disappeared and never came back. So now all I do is sit in my bedroom against the wall, crying because my life is close to nothing anymore. No friends, family, people to talk to. It sucks being me. Maybe if I had a pet or something to keep me happy I wouldn't be such a mess but I don't have anything like that. We're so poor and it's hurting me. We barely have any food and I'm starving most of the time. My father works, gets a lot of money, and then goes out with his friends and spends it all on himself and gives nothing to me or my mother. Maybe this is part of the reason why she drinks her life away, to forget her problems. But the truth is, I need her. I need her to sober up and talk to me so maybe we could work it out as mother and daughter. I'm going to ask her tomorrow if we can work together to make things better and move on with our lives and hopefully gain some money. I'm not sure what her response will be but I really hope she's up for it.

I woke up the next morning with my hair in a mess. I could hear people shouting from the kitchen downstairs. I looked up at the ceiling and sighed as I realised it was my parents having an argument. I could hear my mother yelling that all my dad ever does is fight with her for her problem, and that her problem is all his fault for being a terrible husband and a terrible dad. She wasn't wrong, he is horrible. I don't think I've ever liked him and I think I would love my mother a lot more if he didn't drive her to drinking a few bottles of wine everyday. I don't think I've spoken to her while she's sober in years. I'm 17, by the way, And my life has been this way forever. I wanted to talk to her, so I can attempt to make things better. But I can't talk to her while he is there, I have to wait until he leaves the house. I could hear him telling her it wasn't his fault that she turned out this way. He called her a drunk piece of trash and he wishes that she would die. I opened my bedroom door and stomped down the stairs. I shouted at him and told him that he shouldn't have said that to her and that it was too far. He looked at me with anger and said I shouldn't talk to him that way ever again. I told him no, and that it IS his fault that she has this problem. My mother was sat on the kitchen floor, crying her eyes out. My dad told me to go back to my room. I ran back there and slammed my door. I couldn't take it anymore so I opened up my window and jumped down into the bushed below. One of the twigs scraped my leg and it hurt really bad. I limped away from the house and sat on a swing inside a playground. I cried for hours on that swing, thinking about how my mother would feel when she notices I'm not there and thinking about how she will react. I didn't even leave her a note on why I left, or why I chose to leave her on her own. What if she does something stupid? Or if she looks for a note and breaks down because she can't find one? I stood up off the swing and ran to a local store. I put up my hoodie and walked inside. I took a notebook and some pens off the shelf and ran out of the store with them. A man chased me but ran out of breath and I got away. I sat down on a park bench and opened up the notebook. I took out a black felt pen and started writing my note.

" Dear Mother,
                              I'm really sorry I had to leave. I don't want you to be upset because
                              that's not what I want for you. I want you to get rid of Dad and just
                              be happy. I want you to go out there, fix your problems, find a new
                              man, and start a brand new family with him. A family without a guy
                              like dad, and a son or daughter that isn't an emotional wreck like me.
                              Just please move on with your life and burn this note. I just want you
                              to know that I will always love you and I will never forget you, mother.
                              I wish you all the best for your future, and don't worry about me. Just
                              please take my advice and move on. It will be worth it. Don't come to
                              look for me. I don't want that. I love you, mother. This is my goodbye."

I kissed the bottom of the paper and left my wet lip shaped stain on the paper. I folded it up and took it to my front door of the house. I wrote "Mother, I love you." on the front of the paper and then I slid it underneath the door. I knew dad would be out at this time of the night so I pushed the doorbell and ran as fast as I possibly could down the path and behind a tree nearby so I could watch her open the door. A tear rolled down my cheek while I watched my beautiful mother open the door and then bend down to pick up my note. She opened the note and read it at the door while I watched in pain. She dropped to the floor and started bawling and screaming my name. Begging for me to come back. I heard her yelling that I'm all she has and that she wants me to be happy with her. I sat behind the tree and tried to keep my tears inside but I couldn't. I heard her calling the police so I stood up and ran down the street in a direction that she couldn't see. I sat behind a trash can in a dark alley and heard sirens go by all night. There was a dark and abandoned park nearby in the woods that no one really went to so I ran there and spent the night on the cold park bench. All alone, with no one to help me.