Page 41 of We Are Yours
I didn’t care to have anyone’s trust. It never bothered me, seeing as I didn’t trust anyone either. How could I demand that from someone when I wasn’t willing to give it out myself? It was the way I’d always been, and there was no changing that.
It didn’t take a therapist to understand it was trauma from my parents being selfish bastards. I had more memories of the bad than I ever did of the good. The number of times they left me somewhere or with someone to do or get drugs was unforgivable.
I learned at far too young an age what drugs looked like. At one point, I thought everyone’s parents were always high. I didn’t know until I was about seven or eight that it wasn’t normal to see your father stumbling around belligerent or your mother depressed or extremely happy.
She was either up or she was down.
There was no in the middle.
I often thought about her mental health and whether she wasn’t suffering in silence. However, when that notion was acknowledged, I’d wonder if I had it too. I’d spiral, thinking something was wrong with me.
Constantly being self-aware of any triggers that would keep me up at night was just the consequence of trying not to lose my shit on a daily basis. Which was another reason to become cold and detached. If I didn’t care, I didn’t get hurt. Having two parents who were junkies didn’t help my anxiety. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, and I never forgot it as much as I tried.
Right when the stillness was becoming too much, I reminded her, “You have an hour.”
She grabbed the paper, writing:
* * *
The only clothes I own are black.
* * *
With that, she gestured to the closet, and there in the corner was a pile of pitch-black darkness. Most of it looked old and tattered, and for another reason I couldn’t explain, it pulled at me. My gaze shifted to the stuffed animals that were on the floor in the corner of the closet. I recognized them immediately. They were comfort items from CPS.
Did she run away from them?
She noticed what I was looking at and reached for the handle to close the bifold door, but I stopped her.
I blurted, needing to know, “You were in the system?”
She hesitantly nodded, eyeing me cautiously.
“Is that what you’re running away from?”
The question lingered in the air, along with her worry about what I’d do with the information, as I answered the question for her.
Not ceasing my interrogation, I pressed, “Where are your parents?”
Again, I should have known better because she wrote down, challenging…
* * *
Where are yours?
* * *
I argued, “I asked you first.”
Her stare narrowed in on me.
* * *
I don’t know.
* * *
There in three little words, I was shoved to the edge, crashing to my demise, and I sincerely replied…
