𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐑𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐒𝐮𝐛𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

Mommy

"You're just a child. Let the adults handle this, sweetie." My mom told me. She had that cheerfully disgusting smile on her face as she spoke with the principal. She sent me out of the office to wait in the chair outside the door.

My mom had believed that my friends—who'd been my friends since kindergarten, who had been named the unstoppable trio of the school, who'd had stuck with me through all my difficult times and I did with theirs, who had gotten top marks on the S.O.L.—were bad influences. And better yet, she said that the teachers were untrustworthy and that they could be lying.

I hated it! Who was she to tell me that my friends were bad influences when they were clearly not? She controlled and lived through my life like it was her own, and finally, when I thought I had something she wouldn't dare touch—my impregnable friendship with Jason and Samuel, she broke it down.

This all started when Dad had left. It was January fifth, the day that my mom would not stop obsessing over my test result. I had gotten a D on a test for scientific notations since I just couldn't make sense of it. It was just a jumble of a few numbers, positives and negatives, some exponents, and too many zeros to count. Normally I was good at math, but it was just difficult. I couldn't make sense of it. I had never felt something like it; especially in math. And while I was running through a forest of confusion and bafflement as tear-filled rivers flooded my mind, the birds sang my mother's terrifying screams and unanswerable questions as her face followed me in the thundering clouds.

My mother had always been all about my grades since she could never get into her dream school. But why should it be my problem if she couldn't complete her own? My father cared, but in a less pressured way. So while my mom had been telling me I was a slob or that I was fat or that I was stupid, my dad would be off to the side. And sometimes, as pitiful as it was, I believed her. As she repeated it to me, like a mantra that could never be stopped, I became accustomed to it. The thoughts would fill my mind of everything I was void of or not good enough for.

It hit Mom hard when my dad left without a word, nothing to tell her that she was a misunderstanding. From there on, she latched onto me, not letting go. She began to become even more involved in my life, digging through every aspect of it like I was an important school assignment.

My restricted freedom had been taken away from me and I couldn't even fight back, because that would be considered "disrespectful" and "being ungrateful."

My mother came out of the office, smiling with happiness. It looked so vile on her that I wanted retch but I held it in. "Come on, baby-doll, let's go home."

Yay. I just love homeschooling.

»———«

"Where do you think you're going?" My mom asked. She was scarier than usual, keeping me under surveillance and barely letting me outside. It was as if I wasn't even allowed to walk around freely anymore.

"Oh—um, I was just going to play outside," I told her truthfully. Mom had moved us deep into the woods and quit her job so she could devote herself to me completely. I hated it. She would go to the store around once a month or two. She had cut me off me from the internet and put bars on my window. I felt like I was in prison.

"Oh, no, no, no, no. You can go to your room and stay there." She told me as she grabbed me lightly by the arm.

And like a little kid, I had a temper-tantrum. "No, no. I'm tired of my room! NO!" I screamed as I thrashed. She yanked and pulled my body from the doorknob. She wrapped her arms around my waist and roughly pulled my arms from the slippery walls. My nails left indents in the wall's paint; I clawed at the walls as if they were my own mind. I scratched them hard enough to feel the pain and see the colour of red run from underneath my nails.

"Come on. Be a good boy and listen to Mommy." She said, unreasonably calm. She jerked me finally from the walls and hauled me through the house. I kicked, beating my feet on countertops and leaving holes in the enclosure. I was not giving up. I refused to.

I screamed and cried as I weakly pummeled her hold on me. "Shh. It's okay. Calm down, baby. You'll stay with me forever. You won't be like your dad. You won't. You won't."

Once she dragged me through the house, we reached my room and she threw me in without a second thought. I pushed myself back up, filled with adrenaline, and clung the doorframe as she slammed the door. I wailed in agony as I felt the hot pick of my fingers being crushed. I could see the door only slightly bend around my digits as they turned white at the ends from loss of circulation and blood spurted out. The thick liquid made it's way down my arm in streams as the scene became more than covered.

"Don't keep me in! Please! I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to!" I sobbed as my legs gave out and I sloped against the wall. My fingers were hot with pain yet cold with numbness as I tugged at the door.

Suddenly, she swung the door wide open, filling the dark room with light, and kicked my chest with a barefoot. She smiled at me like nothing was wrong and told me, "I'm going to the store for a little while, okay? Be a good boy and stay in your room."

My arms gave out as my head fell into the wood floor as I screamed. I desperately crawled to the door and twisted and turned the knob, but to no avail. I threw my frail fist against the blood-covered door while begging for non-confinement.

I just wanted out. Why couldn't I have that?

»———«

She had started to resort to drugs to keep me in my room, and lessons had become strained to me, although it looked as if she couldn't see it. My tense posture, fiddling hands, indirect eye contact, and terse sentences.

I couldn't stand it anymore. I felt like a captive, unable to escape this increasingly deep ditch.

I hated it. I hated her. I had to do something. Anything.

It was late at night and we were preparing for dinner. Lately, she had been putting the food in my room like some dog waiting for their meal. But this time, she had allowed me to cook with her.

That was her biggest mistake.

"Honey, dear, could you go get the pan for the asparagus?" She asked; I complied.

As I pulled out the rack of pans, my eyes went to something brighter, more attractive. It was a set of knives, ranging from small and smooth at the point, to large and jagged. My hands should've just pulled a pan, closed the pantry, and gave it to her. But my hands wandered to the knives, smoothing over the handles and pulling them up to show the gleaming metal. I selected one, it was medium-sized and polished.

"Hurry up, I'll need the pan soon." My mother's voice startled me. She had her back turned working on the pale chicken. My body was shaking and my eyes were so sharp it hurt. Everything was so incredibly focused but dulled down to a simplistic light.

It was absolutely terrifying and exhilarating.

My mind was moving in a fast-paced rhythm as life moved in slow motion. I picked up the knife and turned to my mother's back. Just as I pushed the knife forward, my mother turned. The metal slowly pushed through the fabric and into the delicate skin. The feeling of pushing the knife into something alive was like no other. It was so gruesomely grotesque that I would've thrown up had I not been in such a state. I watched as the knife went in, but she only saw my face as I stabbed her. I pulled the blade out of the thick skin with forced ease.

Blood soaked her shirt as she looked down and crumpled to her knees. She gasped, hyperventilating as her hand touched the wound. She looked up at me and asked in a coarse voice, "why?"

I looked at her before whispering into her ear as her body grew cold and fell limply onto me, "don't worry. You're an adult, let the children handle this, Mommy."