Where Is The Edge

Chapter 18

Flashback
December, 1994
(TW: Intrafamiliar physical and psychological abuse, mention of self-harm, suicide by overdose)

A constant feeling of frustration haunted me every day.

It was probably the most accurate word to encapsulate the constant urge to burst into tears about not being enough, even though I was doing my best.

The issue of finding out about my father was still a burning sore on my skin, desperately seeking improvement but only becoming more and more unbearable.

Far from being sympathetic about it, my mother has always been the type to get even angrier when she saw me angry, so I had to suck it up and pretend that everything was going great, especially since it was exactly 23rd December, just two days before Christmas.

This used to be the season I was most excited about; it meant going out to the bazaars in town to buy souvenirs, having the homey hot chocolate at Mrs. Grant's coffee shop, finding an area full enough of snow to make a snowman... ever since my mother worked for that man, my sense of infinite excitement for any holiday had faded until I had to settle for the vain hope that every year would be different. Barely two years had passed since then, and everything pointed to the fact that the third was approaching.

Most infuriating of all, my mother seemed unwilling to change any of this, and my attempts to make her life a little less difficult always went unnoticed by her. I was sick and tired of feeling that no matter how hard I tried to make her notice my efforts, it was nothing compared to what she expected of me. Worst of all, when she was not in a good mood, the consequences were dire.

The front doorknob made the characteristic sound of the key being inserted.

I was used to receiving a tired woman, who was irritated by my thrill at her return. It was no surprise, it was eleven o'clock at night and she had been out since four in the morning. She was right in not possessing the liveliest attitude.

"Hi, mom," I turned off the TV, which was playing a DVD I rented of Nirvana's MTV: Unplugged. I wasn't really watching it, I was just using it in the background to read my book.

My mother blew smoke out of her mouth, and that's when I noticed she was smoking a cigarette.

I hated those things, they always managed to bring up a bad kind of butterfly feeling in my stomach. Put aside the hope that the days would be different, or the hope that at least the holidays would be different, the magnitude of longing to never see those things again was like absolutely nothing else.

"Good evening," she replied curtly, moving to the two-seater armchair next to me. And yet, I already felt the need to get away from her, not because I wanted to, it was really a constant fear of past experiences repeating themselves.

"Today I went grocery shopping, swept and mopped the whole house, dusted all the furniture, did the laundry, cleaned the toilets..." I told her. I never expected an award or excessive praise for it, since it was the least I could do if my job was not as demanding as hers. The only thing I always longed for was just a word or two of kindness.

"Did you wash the dishes?" She inquired, leaving me again, defeated. As much as I tried my best to feel disdain for these circumstances, they were always bigger than me and ate at me in the cruelest possible way.