Page 7 of Broken

I ruined my mother, my father, and my first boyfriend. Everyone I ever loved or cared for lost everything because of me.

Thinking about Adam, and how I failed him, and hurt him, the pain made my knees feel like they were about to give out. Why couldn't I be what he needed? Why wasn't I strong enough?

Tears blurred my vision as I gave myself one last look in the mirror.

The makeup I spent way too long doing smudged. I had to leave in fifteen minutes, and I still needed to say goodbye to my mother. I didn't write a letter to her. I doubted she would care.

Since my father left almost a year ago, she spent most of her time either high or drunk. It never made much of a difference before, though. The two of them never stayed sober long.

I sighed and wiped my tears, reset my makeup, and walked out of the bathroom to knock on my mother's bedroom door. No answer. Not surprised.

Slowly, I turned the knob; the door creaked open, so she was asleep, or gone. I peeked through the space between the door. The room wreaked of booze and stale cigarettes. Wonderful. That meant she passed out cold. It was a mild relief; she wouldn't show up at graduation looking like she spent the past five days in a sweaty booze-induced heap of no sleep. Usually, when she looked like that, she hadn't slept or showered in as many days.

I opened the door a little more, and small amounts of light escaped into the darkness of her cave-like bedroom. The toxic haze of last night's binge stung my eyes and made it difficult to see.

"Close the fucking door. You're letting light in." My mother moaned into her dingy, flat pillow.

"Sorry, mom. I'm leaving for graduation. The ceremony starts at 5 tonight." I spoke softly into the darkness. I didn't wait for a reply. There wouldn't be one. I closed the door and left. I held onto a small kernel of hope she would pull herself out of the muck of her mind and show up and be a real mother for once.

I pushed the memory aside and started the playlist Danielle and Aine made me for the drive. Please don't let it be Emo. I chanted in my head as the music loaded.

I let out a sigh when I heard the first chords of the song come on, and nothing angsty or emotional came out. Aine aptly named the playlist 'Roadtrippin' although I knew she had some help to come up with ideas. It was full of easy-listening songs from decades ago. When Little Red Corvette by Prince came on, I laughed hysterically.

The music, not what I typically listened to, helped to keep my mind off what lay ahead of me. The shit hole I grew up in, is a monument to addiction and decay. I couldn't believe my mother paid the house off and left everything to me.

The woman hated me. She told me every chance she got. I took everything from her. It was all my fault her precious Howard went to prison. It was my fault he took his own life. Everything was always my fault, even when it wasn't. Especially when it wasn't my fault. In her eyes, I was worthless, nothing but a waste of space and life.

"Aghhh" I screamed into the emptiness of the car; my fist pounded on the steering wheel.

The Hand That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails came on and I smiled. I needed some angry music to get me through this trip at some point. I turned the volume up and smiled as I changed my mind and continued my drive.

I was going home to face the nightmares and the darkness. I would make sure the evil never touched my little girl. It was time to go face my demons and find out which one of us would come out on top.

Night fell long before I got into town. When I called Kai that morning, informing him I would be there sometime tonight, he told me I had to pick up my mother's keys from Mia's parents' shop.

He sounded as enthused about the idea of me coming home as I was. He tried to talk me out of going. He assured me everything could be settled via email, and I didn't need to stress about making the trip up. I told him I needed to do this.

It was time to bury the skeletons lingering in my closets. Time to pay the piper.

At least I got to visit Mia first. That would be the easy makeup. I hadn't seen her since graduation, and when I called after I had Aine to tell her sorry and I loved her, she said she understood why I left the way I did.

She told me I hurt her, but she still loved me. We agreed to write when able, and she gave me the open-ended 'don't be a stranger.' That was how we ended things. Well, I wasn't being a stranger now, I came home.

I hurt Kai, though. He had the nerve to show up at ASU looking for me right before the start of the fall semester of our first year of college. Kai had a knack for calling me on my shit. Why did I think this would be any different?

Explaining why I needed a clean break from my parents, the town, him, and Mia had been hard. They were all constant reminders of what I'd done. To explain my growing, pregnant belly hidden by my oversized ASU hoodie and matching sweats would have been a shit show. I can only imagine how the conversation would have gone. I reminded myself I saved him from pain. I saved everyone I loved from the pain.

I put the memory of our last argument to the back of my mind with the rest of the memories I’ve kept locked away all these years and checked into my hotel room.

The place was a cute little inn nestled in the center of town. Designed like a small country cottage. Aptly named The Cottage. A town staple since the nineteen fifties and changed owners too many times to count over the years.

Another small blessing, I didn't recognize the woman at the counter. An older woman with graying hair and the telltale lines of a habitual smoker framed her mouth.

She asked no questions other than the obligatory check-in information, handed me my room key, and went back to reading her worn romance novel with a man in a kilt ravishing a barely clothed, busty maiden on a grassy hill.

I wondered if she was at the part where his pulsing man sword penetrated her lady flower. I shook my head, laughing to myself. I needed as much sleep as possible before facing down my demons.

four

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