Getting By

Chapter 1

"Damn Beth! Why do you insist on continuing this bullshit?"

"Babe, willl you just chill out for a sec? I've got a massive ass head ache and you're not helping, at all. Lets just talk in the morning."

"No Beth, we need to disscuss this now. We can't keep living like this, Lilith can not fend for herself especially since she is only seven!"

My heart stopped at the sound of my name. What had my parents been fighting about now? I continued to peer through the crack in the kitchen doorway.

"Listen, Bill, Lilith is only seven. Youre right but since she is seven she does'nt understand anything. She's ignorant, a brat, she has much to learn about life and one of those things is to suck it up."

I may have been young, but I still knew what all of those words ment..Is this what my Mother really thought of me? Letting a few tears escape me as I look at my Mom. I could see the 'other person' in her eyes. The one that was always there after she came home late at night.

"How can you talk about our daughter that way? She is so inoccent, and did nothing to deserve the life she is getting. While your out doing drugs and drinking, and putting in your 'part' in this relationship, I am the one that still struggles to keep the food on the table for us. To keep the bills payed, even though we are still behind on all of them and we now have no way to pay rent, again, because of you." He grabbed her hand gentaly, "Beth..Please, we need to just start over..Have a better life." I guess to my Mom it must have felt aggressive because she grabbed the kitchen knife and held it to his throat.

"Get your damn hand off of me." He let go, fear and confusion in his eyes. Mother had NEVER behaved this way. "Now listen here, Bill, im sick and tired off you and your nightly lectures. If you don't like the way I handle shit around here, then you can get the fuck out. Don't take anything with you, not even your daughter." My father's expression suddenly changed to anger and rage.

He took the knife from her and held it to her thoat. "Okay, fine. You want it your way? Then I will leave and when Lilith gets taken away from you, and you have absolutly NOTHING left, you will wish that I had'nt left." He pushed her back and dropped the knife. When he reached the kitchen door and saw me, his gaze grew softer.

"Where are you going daddy?" I had asked

"Um Dads going to be away for a while." He said and looked back at mom, then leaned down to me. "I will be back some day, I promise." With that he walked to the door and blew me a kiss, "I love you." Then he was gone. I looked back to Mother. She had the knife again, and she was coming at me.

"You little bitch!" She yelled before slappin me to the floor. "This is YOUR fault."

"M-momma..What have I done wrong?" I said, backing away, tears flowing heavy.

"You ruined this family, are you satified?' She pulled me by my hair and slammed my face against the wall.

"Momma.." More tears pooring from my face.

"Shut up little brat." Kicking me so hard that It felt like my ribs were bleeding. She stood over me for a moment before crouching down. "Why do you cry bitch?" She said and then took the knife to my stomach, making a deep wound.

Snapping out of my memory by a car horn.

I'd been standing in the street for who knows how long. I didn't apologize to the driver, just continued my journey back home. It had been nine years since the incident, and not much has changed. Dad is still gone but he some how managed to get a hold of us, though e-mail, and phone. He didn't call often which was fine, I understood why. Mom still hadn't changed. She still went out every night, still came home with that 'other person' in her eyes, and still only cared for herself. I had a minimum wage job as a waitress, at our towns finest resteraunt. I bought my own clothes, fed myself, and payed for school and books. It wasn't easy but it was getting me by. The only thing that had probably really changed was that we went from living in a small house, to a trailer. Also the fact that sometimes Mom now brought some of her 'friends' home when she returned at night, and Mom now had me go to the drug store to get her perscription pills, of which she didn't even need. She only wanted them for all the wrong reasons. Yeah, iv'e walked in on her a few times, seeing her nose sucking up the powder that  had once been a pill.

I opend the door to our trailer and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. We couldn't afford electricity so we always had the lights turned off. "Mom?" I looked around, squinting. All of the curtains were also closed, except in my room. "Mom im back. Where are you?"

"In here'.' The voice came from the bathroom. When I approched the doorway, I found her sitting on the floor, with head leaned against the wall looking at the ceiling. She didn't move her head as she spoke, "You got my medication?"

"Yeah mom," I sat it next to her.

"Good, now go away."

I nodded and went to my room. Thinking of how I should poison her or kill her in her sleep, or do something and make it look like an accedent. Something to make sure she felt some sort of slow, torturous death. I didn't feel bad, not one bit, except the fact that she was my only connection with Dad. She paid for the phone, so she would have contact with her 'friends'. I only used it to talk to dad. All my friends could wait untill school to talk. Without contact to my Father, i'd probably be dead right now, of starvation or something. He was the only person that I every remembered that was there for me, from what little I did remember.

It was only 2:15 on a Friday, and since I had nothing better to do, I slept.