Celestia wants to leave her home and get as far away as possible from her alcoholic mother. When she stumbles into a drunk man and helps him home, what happens when he becomes her way out?
#2 in Smile
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July 11th
The entire walk home his name wouldn't leave my mind. It was like having a question without an answer that produced an endless list of more questions.
Why was this random man glued to a part of my brain I didn't know existed?
Did I want it to stop?
Why do I feel less exhausted with the question of his existence in my mind?
Why did he make me want to smile?
A bunch of questions that are useless without an answer that I'll never get. When I got home after taking the long way to keep up my lie that I lived nearby, I was beyond exhausted—beyond weary. But with the endless question of Kai roaming my thoughts, I almost couldn't feel it.
"Ma?" I whispered, my foot banging against the bottom of the door to get it to shut fully. "Ma? Are you home?" My eyes struggled to adjust to the dark of my 'home', the only guiding light being the peak of moonlight through the curtains above the kitchen sink full of dishes.
I trudged through the mess from the earlier fight and on toward the bedroom. My mother was a nurse—is a nurse. She usually doesn't remember that she's an alcoholic or that we fight but she always remembers not to treat me like a daughter half of the time. My mother drinks at night then wakes up at 5 in the morning for her shift, confused as to why her head is pounding and her clothes are dirty.
I wonder if she ever questions how we got into this situation—this living situation. Maybe to her this is a dream—a nightmare—that she had no choice but to be in. She just went to sleep one night and this has been her life ever since. Maybe that's what she thinks.
My mother is too descriptive and detailed to think that. But my mother didn't drink. She wasn't a fantastic mother nor was she going to win any awards but she was my mother and she loved me nonetheless. The body of my mother...I'm not so sure.
I stood in the doorway as I stared down at her. Her limbs strewn out across the bed in every direction and her mouth wide open. She was snoring quietly and her hair was beyond tangled as it covered the top half of her face.
I slowly recede from the doorway and back into the main area to rest on the recliner covered in old newspapers and ripped up sheets. This, most of the time, was my bed. I don't mind it and I don't remember ever have minding it. All I know is that this is more comfortable than the floor and the sound of the crinkled newspaper, that can barely let off sound anymore, relaxed me just enough for me to sleep.
...
My eyes shot open as I hit the floor. My vision was cloudy as I tried to put together what just happened and why my body had felt like I'd been hit with a bolt of lighting. Muffled talking and the blurry vision of my pacing mother stood before me. I couldn't put together what was happening but I knew I was hurting and I knew I had to get up.
