Addict

We ain't getting no younger

I am not going to say my childhood was perfect. I'm not going to act like I'm some poor orphan that you should feel sorry for either. I'm not that weak. In fact , I never even liked my parents. They had their fair share of issues and never really paid much attention to mine. Let's start this from when I was five. I was quite a happy child and I got along well with most other kids. I had an older brother who I absolutely adored since in all honesty he cared for me more than my parents ever would , but even though they were mostly indifferent to me , at this point my mum and dad were still my main carers. Doing parental things , just as they should. They'd make my food , buy my clothes , take me to school , etcetera. All in all I was happy. But then , as in any life worth writing about , disaster struck. My older brother became very ill , and as much as we all prayed that it wouldn't be anything to worry about , it turned out to be the worst thing we possibly could've expected. Blake .. had cancer. In reality things went slowly, but to me it was such a blur that it simply could have been five minutes. He went through treatment after treatment and was flung between home and hospital constantly. But don't get me wrong , he fought. He fought for two whole years and never gave up , but it wasn't enough.. I clung to every second I could spend with him , always wondering when I would have to say goodbye for the last time.

Then eventually that day came , it was June 23rd , only 5 days before his 18th birthday. Before he became an adult. I was with him. I saw my brother die. I clung to him and refused to let go , my parents were crying beside me and tried to pull me away but I wouldn't let go. I refused to believe he wasn't going to be here anymore. It eventually took 5 nurses and two doctors to get me off him. Even then , I carried on kicking and screaming and crying , desperate to just have one last minute, my parents even later told me I bit two of the nurses. But I didn't care. I didn't care about the nurses, or my parents. I didn't care about school anymore , or my friends, or my teachers. I just wanted Blake back. Slowly my parents lost interest in me. "Neglected" was the word my social workers later used. But I didn't really believe that. They just seemed to forget about my existence more than anything else. It was as if they were living in some sort of weird bubble and I was just that one irritating fly trying to get in.

So I learnt to look after myself after that. Or at least what I called "looking after". For in reality I'd flunk school , throw myself meals together and get a shitty job in town. I'd always looked a lot older than my age so when I applied and told them I was 14 they believed me. I mostly just avoided my so-called parents since when they saw me their facial expression was either as if seeing a ghost or a rather disgusting bug. As time went on I got used to that life and even though I still felt the pain for my brother every single day , it became bearable. The loss never lessened but I learnt to cope with it. To just get on with things and power through. I became complacent with that and four years dragged slowly by , until a few weeks after my fifteenth birthday (I had bought myself a cake since my parents , ceased to realise I existed never mind the fact it was my birthday) , and it was just a normal day I had gone out to work ,  come home and was sat fiddling with some scrap paper I'd found , very pointlessly trying to make origami (yes I had reached THAT level of boredom). When I heard the most migraine-inducing crash from downstairs.

At first I flinched and started to run down before hesitating ... did I really want to face my parents? I mean .. they had probably just dropped a plate or , well , ten. However that's when I heard the screaming. And let me tell you I had never heard screams like that in my entire life. I had heard screams of thrill and adrenaline such as roller coasters , I had heard screams of fear such as horror movies and haunted houses , and I'd heard screams of heartbreak , such as my own at the death of Blake.. but never this. These weren't normal. They were screams of pure and total spine-numbing terror. Slowly, hands trembling , I inched my way down stairs. When I neared the bottom of the stairs , the screaming had ceased. But little did I know , my trauma was just beginning , for what I saw when I reached the dining room changed me forever...