Face Down ✓ | Patrick Stump

Chapter One

Face down in the dirt

She said, "This doesn't hurt"

She said, "I've finally had enough"

Oh, how I wish this was entirely true. I wish that I had that faith and power to say that it didn't hurt. But it did.

I don't think people can realize how much having an abusive family member can hurt. The daily beatings, the scars that don't want to fade, the wounds that don't want to heal. People may compare it to violence on the streets, like getting mugged or jumped. They say "Oh yeah, I know how you feel." But they don't.

People don't realize how much it hurts on an emotional level.

Besides living in fear of constant attacks, of course. But they don't know what it's like to see someone you love turn into a monster. The person that carried you in their body for nine months, raised you for seventeen years, just completely  change before your very eyes. To watch them scream in pain every day and drink away their problems. To take out their anger on their own children. The woman that I loved the most in my life was my mother. But this wasn't my mother. This was a stranger, under the influence, living in my mother's body.

That's another thing people don't realize. When someone mentions an abusive family member, they immediately picture the male figure. It's always the father, the brother, the husband, the boyfriend, the son. But people don't realize women can be abusive, too. They are as capable of men when it comes to hurting their loved ones.

In fact, it may even cut deeper. Yes, males are typically more aggressive, more violent. They'll leave you marks and scars and bruises that will litter your skin for life. But women know how to cut, and how to make it hurt. They'll leave marks under the skin, wounds deeper than any knife can cut.

May 27, 2014.

The day after my nineteenth birthday.

Two years after the diagnosis.

Nearly two years of  the alcohol addiction.

One year after they found the second set of tumors.

Five months of my father being gone, four months of my abusive mother.

Face down in the dirt, I've had enough.

My mother was the drunkest I have ever seen her. Definitely drunk enough to be in the hospital. From my bedroom, I could hear her screams among the shattering of glass. Her drunken footsteps echoed throughout the stairwell, the sound circling up to the bedrooms. Until one foot slipped, and she tumbled down the steps. I raced out of my room to see her sprawled out at the bottom of the steps. She was either dead or passed out. And to be honest, I didn't care which one it was.

I rummaged through my closet to find my duffel bag, collecting dust inside. I stuffed my clothes in, along with necessities I could find in my room and bathroom. Toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo. Having only taken up half of the space with my few possessions, I packed for my siblings.

"What are you doing Skye?"

"Are we going to visit Daddy?"

I turned to them.

"I'm afraid not. Daddy has gone to a special place where only grown-ups go. He wasn't old enough to go, but because he's so special, the angels let him in early. We won't be seeing him for a long time, sweetie." I said with a fake smile.

Everything was packed. The bag was filled with our necessities. I had a small handbag with the little cash I had, my iPod Nano, and my worthless flip phone. And then there was my guitar.

My guitar. My most prized possession. I was better with a bass, but the guitar will always be special to me. My dad bought me this just over 10 years ago, for my 9th birthday. He was the one who had taught me how to play. Shortly after, I had taught myself the bass. I rarely played over the past two years, especially with my mother always around. She would just yell at me for making noise. How ironic.

That was one thing I regret. Not playing for my dad one more time. I also sang a bit, and I wish I had played just one more song for him in the hospital. Now, my hands were itching to play some song about loss from cancer, like 'Wake Me up When September Ends" or even just 'Cancer'. Yes, I had my father to thank for my excellent taste in music. While I was growing up, he would always play music around the house. Green Day, Blink-182, Good Charlotte, Nirvana, Queen, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, the good stuff.

I took one last look around my room. This would most likely be the last time I ever saw it. Thank God.

"Okay now, we have to be really quiet so we don't wake up Mommy, okay? We're gonna be spies!" I whispered with fake enthusiasm to Ryan and Rose.

"Like James Bond?" Ryan's face lit up. How he knew who James Bond was at the age of three, that was beyond me.

"Yes, now keep quiet! Mommy can't know, or else our cover will be blown, and we can't be spies anymore!" That seemed to stop the questions from coming. We stepped over our passed out mother, and up to the front door.

The cold, midnight air bit us in the face, even though it was the end of May. But in our town, just outside of Woodstock, Illinois, it would always get cold at night. I blamed the wind chill.

After many failed attempts at picking the lock on the driver's door of my mother's car, I was finally in. After making sure that my siblings were secure in the backseat, I put the duffel and my guitar in the passenger seat and hot-wired the car.

Hot-wiring and pick locking. Two things I taught myself on those nights that my mother was so drunk at the bar that I had to pick her up. I guess those are the only two things I could thank my drunken mother for at the moment. But then again, if she weren't an alcoholic, then we wouldn't have no money. I would be in college, Ryan and Rose would be in preschool, and she would still have her job and she wouldn't have become abusive and we wouldn't be in this mess.

But we were in this mess. And we were currently just an hour and twenty minutes away from somewhere where we could escape her.

Chicago.