Chasing Matters

Ready For What's Next

I fell asleep very quickly like I expected. I dreamt of my past experiences with jail and the trouble I faced. School, family, life. I woke up worried and scared. Mom always wanted to get to work on time, so I wasn't expecting her to wake me up to talk about it then and there. So I waited until she got home at 3:56 almost every day.

I didn't turn my TV on, I had my phone sitting on the edge of the bed, and a belt. I had Rosaline under the floor and covered the wood up with a rug and put my bed on top of the spot. I was waiting. I knew she was angry, because she didn't even text me to tell me what I needed to prepare for when she arrived. Throughout that whole time, I thought about if I should only answer her questions, if I should "stretch the truth," or if I should just not say anything.

Noticing the time was starting to wind down, the feelings came back again and I began rocking back and forth, crying. Not knowing what to expect, if the belt was going to be the right tool, or if I should just hide the damn thing and wish that we were going to have a "Come to Jesus Meeting." I try to block every negative thought out, and think about the positive that could come out of this, and what I can do differently. Although it took a minute, I managed to find a few good things before I was called into the kitchen.

Being called into the kitchen meant 2 out of 3 things; A talk, an action that resulted in me doing something terrifying, or an add whooping that almost never happened. I get up, take a deep breath, and walk into the kitchen with my phone in hand. I walk in to her sitting at the end of the table, and her posture almost like a cobra, ready to strike if you make the wrong move. I extend my hand out and set the phone near her, I'm visibly shaking which makes matters 100x worse on my end. I sit down and wait for her to finish examining me and tryinf to figure out what I did that was bad enough to actually show fear.

Out of all the years of therapy, it has still been very hard to talk to my mom. I shut down and cry most of the time, but I have myself a little pep talk before I entered the same room as her.

I stare at the floor and play with my hands under the table for what felt like hours. The awkward silence was basically inviting my anxiety to throw a party full of fear inside of my head, almost like another war. I open my mouth and manage to say "I'm sorry m-," before she had her first question. "Why didn't you come inside on time? You had your phone and I had called you multiple times to see what you had been up to." I stare at my phone and totally forgot that I had turned my phone off to save the battery. Telling her that seemed to relieve a little bit of tension between us, until I realised that I have done that multiple times before and received several actions and consequences for it. "I was at the basketball court last night playing kind of like a mini series NBA Finals thing." She definatelybelieved me then, because if I wasn't playing ball on my own goal, I was at the court. "Okay," she responded.

She had noticed I was getting anxious, because I had been flicking my nails together to make a sound that normally relaxes me. It doesn't ever get me out of a meeting anymore, now it gets me into a deeper hole. "I suppose you didn't get in a fight while you were down there? You know you're supposed to ask me if you can go down there, and that is the exact reason why." By that time, I felt my bottom lip start to shake and tears build up along the rims of my eyes. I didn't want to tell her anything about what happened last night, but I assumed she had put 2 and 2 together if she passed by it and saw the shape it was in. Much less having any of her co-workers finding anything out.

I had been worrying about so much, I didn't think about my phone or what my body looked like. My hair covered the wounds on the back of my head, but it couldn't cover up everything swollen on my face. "Did anyone tell you what happened last night?" I asked, following her question. She retorted with a "you tell me," meaning she knows or has a general idea of what could have happened. I take a deep breath and pause for a second, thinking about what I COULD tell her without disturbing her cobra like position at the table. "I invited some of my friends and some of the people nearby to play at least a game with us. We played one and figured we would waste some time and get some excersise in by playing some more. So we made it out like I previously explained." I go quiet for a second to think about what I'm going to say next, and she notices. "I hope you're not over there making up something else for the story. I want to hear it all." I make the mistake of making eye contact, and my mind goes blank, so I told her most of what happened. I had the thought of "I deserve whatever happens" in my mind too much to start switching up, so I explained. "Mom, the friends I had over, are my close friends. We made this little 'pack' where we basically have each other's back no matter what. I don't know how it happened, but one of the friends that lives close by had screamed seconds before a car ran over a lot of people on the court. They are some people we have beef with, I guess something had started between them and somebody else and I just so happened to be there. I tried to run away, and I think the car was coming after me or the person that was behind me, but I didn't get ran over. I ran to that road we walk sometimes. Y'know, the one with the half pipe. Somebody caught up with me and we were going to come back to the house, but wound up going back and checking to see if everyone got up." She just looked at me, knowing that wasn't the whole story. "He and I stayed with the two that didn't get up, and ran back to the same road when the ambulance came because the cops weren't there yet." I completely left out the guns, because I knew my life would end right there of the cops weren't going to already.

"Uh huh, so then what? What did you do afterwards?" I stared at my phone again and I explained what she asked without ever taking my eyes off that one spot. "Do not lie to me when I ask you this. You said your friends and you have a 'pack.' Is it a gang? Because to me, if there are people willing to kill other people or threaten lives, it must be pretty serious." I swallow hard and face the music. "I never thought about it like that, but I guess it is. We had started it, and honestly, I never thought something like this would ever even happen. It wasn't that serious, we just looked out for each other like they do in the military." I lied. I knew it was a gang. I had a gun, she didn't know, and we all had it for protection. Please don't ask me if I had a fun. "Please don't ask about it, please." I thought. She looked disappointed. "We moved here because you couldn't stop messing up at the last place." She said, but what followed afterwards, hit me like a ton of bricks. "You just got out from being locked up, and you slip up like this?!" By this time, she's screaming at me. I just sit there and sulk. I brace myself and get ready for it to get worse and it hurt my feelings. "You're going to your dad's. I'm sick of this. I know you talk to him, and there's no sense in hiding it."