To Be Your Mother... (TLOU N/A)

"Mama's Little Monkey..."

It was a warm, sunny fall evening in Boston, Massachusetts, around 6 PM. The neighborhood was quiet, only the occasional sounds of birds chirping or the light crunching sounds of leaves gracefully falling on the ground outside... Serene, but beautiful. The most calming time of the year.

Inside of a basic one story house stood a 12 year old girl named Ellie. A top notch middle school basketball player who battled moderate asthma.

She lived with her mother, Anna, who worked as a former nurse losing her job to her pregnancy. Despite Anna's financial struggles sometimes, she made ends meat to see to it that Ellie never went without. Ellie absolutely loved her mother though and their relationship was among the sweetest little things...

Now, Anna worked full time as a basketball coach at Ellie's middle school, but did occasionally consider returning to the hospital to stabilize life on the money front. For now, Ellie's career as an athlete came first and Anna was never one to argue with that statement.

Ellie remained inside of her personal lair, beginning to get ready for her first official day of basketball practice.

Admittedly, she was anxious, attempting to lightly smack away her shakiness as if it was going to stop, "Goddamnit, quit shaking! It's not that bad..."

Ellie hissed, lacing up her brand new basketball sneakers and combing through her hair with a hairbrush.

Sadly, Ellie was no stranger to the blood soaked scourge that was physical and verbal bullying throughout the hallways of school. Ellie was by no means a perfect student. She had the classes she excelled in, like band and science, and the classes that weren't so easy, like math and history.

Although Ellie loved the mountainous amount of topics that came with history, her teacher was awful and failed her out of spite for getting into a fist fight with another student.

That was on them though, for attempting to steal Ellie's inhaler. Thankfully, Ellie's best friend Riley always seemed to be there to put an end to it.

With all of this in mind, coupled with the incoming nerves of her first seasonal basketball practice, Ellie continued the tedious process of brushing her hair.

Suddenly, her brush accidentally ran into the fresh cut on her eyebrow from earlier on in the day when someone smacked their locker door into Ellie's face. She had attempted to cover it up with a bandage to avoid telling her mom the truth, but she had too eventually. Quicker than she would realize, "Ow, son of a bitch!"

So many nerves traipsed their way into Ellie's thoughts, hammering at her brain as if to tell her, "You need to tell your mom about the bullying. If you don't, you'll never succeed at basketball and prove those fuckers wrong!"

To this heart shattering realization, Ellie couldn't hold anything back. As much as she would've yearned to keep the truth as far away from her mother as possible, she couldn't. Not anymore...

Ellie began to breathe very heavily, her breath catching in her lungs similar to the start of the breathless scourge known as asthma attacks. Or as Ellie called them... "Asshole Attacks."

Her feet compulsively hopped against the floorboards beneath her, triggering Ellie to squeeze her eyes shut. She hardly ever let her unshed tears drop below her eyelids, but right now, it was proving to be difficult. Her eyes filled with the hot, burning thunderstorm that battled her brain hard enough to give her a splitting migraine...

So, what else could Ellie do? She had to let them fall. She has no choice now...

"Just let it out. No stopping it now."