The Artist's Wife (BWWM)

Chapter 8~ Crazy

Thirteen years ago.

I yawned loudly before climbing out of the uncomfortable bed I had grown accustomed to and glanced up at the ancient wall clock as was routine for me every morning. I didn't oversleep, thank the gods for that, and there was enough time to get dressed for school and clean up the mess made by my mom's visitors last night. As I stepped out of the shower, I was curious about what time they all went home.

They had been pretty loud this time around.

I stared at my reflection, scarcely believing that I turned thirteen today, I always managed to look older than my age, everyone always said that and I wondered if it was the sad eyes or thin face that gave that impression.

I changed into faded blue jeans and a plain, black tee before lacing up my Converse. I hurriedly packed my assignments and books into my Jansport bag before dashing out of the room.

I stumbled into the living room to find it completely trashed as expected and sighed dutifully before dropping my bag on the couch. I started cleaning up the beer bottles, pizza leftovers and other bits of trash. Including the suspicious-looking stains on the couch.

After cleaning up the living room, I started on the kitchen and I heaved a sigh of relief when I was finally done. At least, mom wouldn't be mad at me today, I had finished cleaning before she woke up. The last time they had one of these raves, she had met me in the middle of it and she had gotten mad and whenever mom got mad, bad things happened.

I wasn't having the ideal birthday now, was I? My mom usually had these wild raves with her friends and they usually spent most of their time drinking and smoking, they also did a lot of other stuff I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to see but nobody cared if I did anyway. I was just that scrawny kid that was always available to be sent around.

I was just thirteen and was fairly sure I knew more about smoking and cleaning pot than most adults did.

These things didn't happen whenever my dad was around though but then again, my father was never around. He worked in a paint factory outside New York and seeing him regularly was a luxury he couldn't afford. He had no idea about what happened when he wasn't around. He had no idea about the men my mother spent all her waking moments with. He didn't know about the number of times I would be all by myself, he thought everything was okay when in fact, everything was not okay.

I wasn't complaining though, because I knew the consequences of speaking up. It would ruin their marriage and it would make mom mad, and when mom got mad, terrible things would happen to me.

I tied my curly, black hair into a ponytail with my flowery scrunchie before ransacking the kitchen for anything I could eat for breakfast. Mom's friends seemed to have eaten all we had and I found a half-eaten granola bar in the fridge, which I hurriedly stuffed in my mouth.

My eyes landed on the new glass bowl lying at the edge of the island containing some juicy, red apples. I remembered her particularly warning me to stay away from both the glass bowl and the apples. It didn't seem like an impossible instruction at the time, but now I was hungry.

Surely she wouldn't notice if one was missing, would she? I was tired from cleaning so early in the morning and my insides were gnawing with hunger.

And it's my birthday...

I glanced in the direction where her room was located before making a mad dash for the bowl. I snatched up an apple and felt sudden elation, an electric surge in my body which immediately vanished when I made one of the worst mistakes of my life. My hand hit the expensive glass bowl and sent it skidding, I felt my heart leap into my mouth and my pulse quicken as I tried to catch it, dropping the apple and dropping to the floor.