Creepypastas

And Then There's Martha...

I live in the middle of nowhere, far away from the rest of my friends. I have to wake up very early in the morning to catch my bus and I usually eat my breakfast as it's bringing me to school. I don't have any brothers or sisters; There's just me, the Ziggy the cat, and my Dad.

And then there's Martha, the chronically pissed-off woman who insists that I call her my Mother. But lately I don't feel so inclined to do so. She's hardly ever around because it seems like she works every day of the goddamn week, as soon as she comes home the first thing she does is find a reason to start yelling at me or cry about something. No rational human being hates their job THAT MUCH, and no one is forcing her to continue working there. There's the paycheck, I guess, but no amount of pay seems worth sacrificing the respect of your family. Whenever she's not home, it's quiet and peaceful. Whenever she's home, she's a mess. When she's not screaming at me over some menial task that I didn't do, or didn't do RIGHT, she's crying about it. Any other person might feel bad about this, but it's such a frequent thing that I've become almost completely desensitized to it. And when she DOES have a day off, whoa-boy! I run for the hills, I just cannot deal with her bullshit for an entire day!

Martha may be the woman that gave birth to me, but by her behavior toward her own family alone, she's hardly a "mother" figure in my life. I'm 15 years old and I get good grades, I don't cut class, I don't do drugs and I never really cared for violent video games all that much. Shit ... I don't even have a girlfriend!

Okay, to be completely honest there IS a reason for that. One that might be, shall I say, "uncomfortable" for her to hear from her only son. But if she's always coming home so upset and pissed off over nothing, there's no way in Hell I'm ever going to consider coming out to her.

Martha is never happy, and I'm starting to think that something might actually be very seriously wrong with her. My Dad doesn't want to talk about it with me, he insists that she takes medication for her issues and that it's under control: Is she getting paid to scream and sob like a crazy-person? Because that's all I ever see her do! I literally cannot remember the last time she smiled at me, the day she took that job her personality did a total 180 and the woman who WAS my Mother vanished. Even poor Ziggy has taken to avoiding her when he hears her car pull into the driveway, maybe cats really DO have a sixth sense.

One week, she left on a business trip to Australia. That was easily the quietest, most peaceful week I've had in recent years. Ziggy had full reign of the house, strutting about in his fluffy glory like he owned the place. Dad and I went to a local motorcycle show in town, so many amazing bikes! And, heheh, shiny leather clothes, too. On the way home from the rally, I told my Dad. I told him about, well, myself. He took it better than I thought he would, a few of the other gay kids at my school weren't so lucky. I'm very glad to have a Father that gets it, but not long after I broke the news to him, his proud smile quickly sank. His facial features seemed to hang limp off his face like half-molten rubber.

"Oh boy," He sighed, "Your mother-"

"Martha will learn to live with it," I barked, I want this part of the conversation to END before it has a chance to fucking BEGIN, "And if she has a problem with it, she can stay in Melbourne for all I care."

"She works so hard for your benefit, you know. You're still her son, she loves you."

"And a fine job she's done of showing it, Dad. How much longer are you going to keep making excuses for her being a shitty parent and a shitty human being?" I looked over and saw my Father's mouth crack open for a moment as though he was about to reply, but he didn't. The rest of that drive home was awkward as Hell for both of us.

When the day came that she was supposed to come home from Australia, she was several hours late. Dad agreed not to give her any details about our previous conversation, he insisted that I should be brave enough to tell her myself. He said that the hardest thing any man can do is be completely honest with himself, and I can certainly appreciate him trying to be encouraging & supportive, I just wasn't feeling up to it. My life of leisure is about to come to a grinding halt as soon as she gets off that plane, and sure enough, it finally pulls up to the gate within ten minutes of it landing.