Patiently Waiting For Jared Holmes | on-going

XVI

Chapter 16.

On my twelfth birthday, my mother got drunk and passed out in her room at eleven in the morning and my father told me he wished I had never been born and left me on the doorstep in the rain.

It's weird how your brain holds on to some of your most painful memories - I've heard about different trauma responses and how your brain is meant to work in a million different ways. Including blocking out whole chunks of someone's life because they couldn't handle the memories. And i know that my trauma response is different to some others, but god I'd give anything to have my brain forget the bad.

I remember that he'd come home so angry that day. My mom had been a little out of it all week, and my dad hadn't been to the house at all. But I'd heard them arguing over the phone. Mom had demanded he made it home for my birthday that Friday, in the end he'd agreed.

But Friday morning he'd come storming through the front door like a hurricane. He didn't give me a single glance, stood at the bottom of the staircase anticipating his return with a toothless smile and pretty pigtails courtesy of Greta. I'd worn a brand new pink dress and thought it made me look real grown up.

He'd walked right past me, red in the face and practically shaking from anger. I'd heard the bedroom door open and then slam closed, heard the yelling and the screaming as they began arguing again. And then he'd said something, I couldn't make out what it was, but it was enough to make mom go silent.

I'd been scared, terrified even, by all of the yelling and so had promptly decided to creep up the staircase and listen outside the room. I was careful not to make much noise and to not step on the creaky floorboard on the left.

And then I'd heard it.

My mom had let out this gut wrenching cry, so loud that it sent a thrill of fear through me that I'd never felt before. Even to this day, I'd never heard anything like it. She'd sobbed and prayed to god in her room, then a ringing slap had echoed.

I'd gasped and jumped away from the door, stumbling over my feet and stepping right on the floorboard. It gave with a loud creak just like expected, and then my father was right there.

I tried to look past him and into their room, only catching a glimpse of my mothers ashen, red face as she weeped on her knees, before he had a firm grip around my arm hard enough to bruise. It did.

He'd shoved me down the stairs along with him, past a startled Greta who began yelling, telling him to leave me alone, and past Lexi who was hiding around the corner. He'd opened the front door and saw that it was raining cats and dogs outside, the worst rain we'd had all year.

"Please," I'd begged, finally realising what his intentions were. "It's raining and I don't have a coat!"

"Nosey bitches don't get what they want." He'd sneered in my face. "You just fuck everything up. I wish your whore mother had gotten rid of you when I told her to."

He'd locked the door behind him.

Surprisingly I didn't cry as I walked the four miles to Katie's house across town. Not even when my new shoes were sodden and covered in dirt from the wet floor. Or when my pigtails frizzed from the rain.

The Holmes siblings had been at their grandparents when I knocked timidly on the door, too short even at twelve to ring the doorbell.