In A Place Called Country Home

The Disaster

I remember it like it was yesterday. I woke up to the daily sound of my parents arguing, usually about the small dumb things.

Through my bedroom door I hear my mother say

"GOD DAMN IT! for the millionth time you never put your mug in the sink after you have coffee how many more times do i have to say something before a miracle happens and you do it?"

And She threw a dish across the room.

"Look honey I'm just saying maybe if we had sex more often I'd help out around the house some more".

"You have to?...you have to be fucking kidding me right now. Well maybe if I didn't have to wash the dishes and do the laundry all the time we'd have sex every night. In fact. We'd be having sex right now! I'd be giving you a blow job so hard your dick would fall off!"

"OH? Oh yah? well forget you! tonight I'll do the dishes and your dirty laundry! Then I expect that blow job after!"

She came upstairs, with a frustrated look on her face and said.

"Get dressed I'm angry with your father and I'm already 20 minutes late for work Shelby I don't have time for this bullshit".

I groaned, threw on a fresh pair of Tommy Hilfiger jeans, my favorite white shirt from urban outfitters and a pair of converse. I left the small upstate NYC apartment for school and got into the car I began thinking to myself...they both have it so good my Mom is a fashion designer and works all day even sometimes gets to travel; my Dad is a surgeon and is never home at night we always have the bills paid on time, clothes on our bodies and food on the table so you figure they wouldn't argue.

I threw in my ear buds and began listening to Arcade by Duncan Laurence in hopes of blocking out the sounds of their arguing and that's when it happened. My Mom and Dad were fighting so intensely they got distracted and went through a red light and a semi truck hit us. It all seemed like it happened in slow motion the car rolled over multiple times and was crushed in the front.  Somehow I managed to make it out of the car only having gashes in my forehead and a broken leg...My parents however didn't make it.

Later at the hospital, surrounded by family and drs, friends that worked at the hospital with my dad trying to hold back the tears I was told exactly what I already knew...that I was lucky to have made it out alive but I didn't feel that way. I was now 16 with no parents.

For 6 months I continued living in my small upstate New York apartment going to my job every day at Starbucks to help pay rent after school and at night time I'd work at the local grocery store...maybe I stayed because part of me wanted something to stay close to my parents.