The Existence I Crave

9

It's been a week since Brent attacked me, and things have been eventful. Brent was charged with aggravated assault, he's serving about a month or so in jail before they'll release him on probation. Kevin was arrested for aggravated assault as well but is serving a longer sentence in prison.

The thing that shocked me was that Officer Kaine said that Kevin confessed to everything. Apparently, Doctor James called the cops when he found my past injuries, he said that when they went to question Kevin about it he broke down in tears before confessing. Kevin apologized to me for what he had done, in a letter that he sent me, I wanted to believe his apology was real, but I just couldn't bring myself to truly believe him.

My mom sold the house, and we moved into a house on the other side of town, it was a much-needed fresh start for the both of us. I had never thought that I'd be able to forgive my mother for what she did, but after what she had told me, a lot of other things began to make more sense.

"Can we talk?"

I was currently in my room, painting something for Mia's birthday when my mom walked into my room.

"Sure," I said, continuing to paint as she took a seat on my bed.

"It's about why I left a year ago," she said.

I set my paintbrush down, walking over to my bed before sitting down beside her.

"Why did you leave?"

"I left for treatment," she said.

"What kind of treatment?"

"After I lost Jenifer I grew numb to everything, except for one thing, and that was pain. Losing a child is one of the most painful things I have ever had to go through. I thought losing your father was the worst thing I had ever gone through but god I was so wrong. It was about six months after her death and I was laying in bed one night and I was having such awful thoughts, they were nothing but ways of how I could kill myself. That was when I knew I needed help, so I did what I thought was the only right thing to do, I left you with Kevin so I could get help," she said.

"Oh," I said, trying to take in everything she just told me.

"Why didn't you just tell us you needed help?" I asked.

"How do you tell the people you love that you don't want to live anymore?"

"I'm sorry," I said.

"It's not your fault baby, I'm just sorry that I couldn't be a mother to you when you needed it most."

"I heard that he stole Mia from Brent."

"No, I heard that Brent left Mia for him."

"Does it really matter, either way, he's the reason why Brent was arrested in the first place."

"Just ignore them," Mia said, shooting a look at the people who were sitting at the table beside ours, causing them to look away from our table.

We were currently eating lunch, and all I could focus on was the rumors about me that were spreading like wildfire. I knew things would be different when I came back to school, but I didn't expect so many people who didn't even notice me before all of this, to be talking about me this much.

"It's fine," I said, not really caring what they were saying about me, if anything I found it to be comical what people could come up with.

"How have you been feeling lately?" Marcie asked.

"Good, the doctor said I had to keep the brace on for a few more weeks and to make sure I don't lift on anything heavy for a while."

"I still can't believe Brent did that," Max said, more to himself than the rest of us.