Growing

Look at Me

"Catherine! Look at me! Look at me Mama!"

I was 13 years old. I was crying on my knees trying to shake my mother awake. She was in a trance, or what she liked to call "vacation".

"Raziel! Enough, she won't wake up!"

My sister was 17 at the time. She was ready to move out as soon as she turned 18 so she could take us with her.

"Layla, just leave him."

My brother was leaning against the frame of the kitchen door. He was 15 and knew my mother wouldn't wake up. He kept reminding me since I first saw her unconscious. He told me the truth straightforward, Layla would try to hide it from me.

My dad was a deadbeat. Just like my mom. But she tried at least once to sober up. He didn't remember we were his kids. He hit on Layla all the time. He didn't stop until her, grandma, Catherine who was our mother, or Andrew hit him.

"Please, look at me!"

"She's not going to wake up, just leave her alone! You keep crying everytime she does this like its your first time!"

I remember Layla  trying to pull me back and grabbing me by the wrist to pry me off of my mom. I remember she held my arm so tight, she left a bruise and the indents of her nails deep in my skin.

"Hey, don't you fucking grab him lile that!", my brother yelled, "He's 13 you asshole!" Everyone always thought that Layla and Andrew would get along being the two oldest children in a family like ours, but they never did. Andrew was childish and just like my parents.

Layla was angry and reacting like an adult. She didn't get a childhood like the one she gave us.