What Is Left?

One

For as long as I could remember, I had never felt this feeling before in my life. At no point in the last 19 years have I felt anything this hollow inside of me. I have reached the bottom, and I can feel it in every inch of my body. What could even be seen as positive after the last 4 years? I will tell you the biggest reasons why I'm feeling this way.

My grandmother passed away exactly 50 months ago (that equals 4 years and 2 months) which put my mother in such a bad state that the relationship between her and my father had no way of surviving. After 7 months of dad trying to make my mum feel better, she finally pushed him to the very edge where he just took his things and walked out crying. Something she never took in mind was how much me and my sister was hurting, we had a very special bond to our gran. But I guess nothing could compete with the bond between mother and daughter. Therefor, my sister and I went with my father when he assured me that my mother would be safe and never be alone because of all of the therapists, I guess her situation was worse than me and my sister knew. The three of us lived at a hotel in central London before we after 3 weeks found a flat nearby.

Now, you might think that everything solved itself from there. You could not be more wrong. My mother would not let my father slip away from all the existing problems, which were very non-existent for everybody except my mother. She showed up at our flat several times, and after that time when she trashed the whole place after she had been out drinking way too many glasses of something, dad had enough. We moved out and got another flat. London isn't the cheapest place and therefor we had it a bit rough when it came to our economy. Me and my sister could clearly see how he got weaker by the day, he lost the shimmer in his eyes and the passion to talk to or care for us like he used to before.

That's when it started, his regular visits to the pub. My sister probably didn't always understand where he went, as a 12 year-old you are a bit more naive. But I knew all along because when he came home his walking and scent gave it all away. But we got used to it, until one night, a messed up night that keeps replaying in my head.

"Ha, I beat you Melissa! I told you, nobody beats me at Mario Kart." I said which just made her more upset. I knew how much she hated losing, but she was still laughing. That was until the front door was pulled open and the smell of whiskey hit us before he even stepped inside. We started a new match and ignored him. Then I heard it. The high pitched voice, I turned my head and saw a woman who was closer to my age than my fathers, she was closer to naked than dressed. I saw them kissing and starting to get undressed on their way to the bedroom. That's when I had enough.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, dad? As if getting drunk and not being around anymore wasn't enough? Now you're showing your 12-year old daughter the wrong way of how girls should be treated and your 16-year old son how to treat them! Where the hell is your dignity? You are supposed to take care of us?!" As the words left my mouth, I just saw his eyes widen. Maybe I could change our whole situation. That's what I started to believe until the next sentence left my mouth before I even knew I had something more to say;

"You're acting like mum. You are losing it. You ARE like mum!"

That's when both me and Melissa knew our father would never return.

"Josh Rowe! How dare you throw those words in my face?" I noticed Melissas hand taking mine, she tried to pull me back so we could hide as our father calmed down and came to his senses. Although those moments are very few these days.

"Where are you two going?" he roared as we both turned and started to jog to my room. In two seconds I felt a strong hand around my wrist. I saw that he got his other around Melissas.

"Let her go! She hasn't done anything wrong! Help!" the last shout I meant for the girl who came with dad. But as I looked across the apartment, I saw that she had already left.

"Oh, you're very right Josh. But I am going to give you both a lesson about never calling me such things.

"You mean like me saying that you have turned out just like our mother? That now that you've lost everything you've become exactly the monster she did, the monster that you promised both yourself and us that you would never become?!"

That's when it happened.

He slapped me right across the face. In that moment I realised that me and my sister deserved better than the monsters that happened to be our parents. I tried to fight back but I didn't stand a chance. You might think that I was overreacting. In some families parents slap their child to teach them. Well, I can tell you that they most definitely doesn't keep going until their sons face is just a puddle of blood.