Stay for Me (Hold Me Close Prequel)

Chapter One: Cycle

-=Evan=-

Wake up. Get ready. Clean the house. Get on the bus. School. Homework. Chores. Sleep. Every day, day in day out, that was my life. The mere concept of the word freedom was foreign to me. In fact, the only freedoms I knew was when I was allowed an hour after school to stay and practice my saxophone, and the nights when my father was passed out drunk on the couch so he couldn't continue to pile chore upon chore on my back until it was the morning and time for me to sleep. Today would have neither of these. The same two thoughts would run through my mind every day upon waking up, one, what day was it? Monday. Shit. No band after school. Two, does my father have alcohol. No. Shit. Now I know that alcohol may seem like a demon, but to me it was a blessing. That means that there is a very real chance that he would pass out by the time I got home, which meant I could relax.

But no, last night I watched my father curse as he threw the last bottle of booze. That would be the last until Wednesday, when the social security check that would barely keep the both of us alive to begin with would arrive. However, the scarce money that came in the mail every month went straight to my father's crippling addiction. So then the weight fell upon me. Thank God I was old enough to work, or else we would be on the streets. I supported us. I paid the bills, got the food, and just managed to stretch my fast food paycheck enough. In fact, my only saving grace, is Jason. He is the best friend anyone could ask for, sticking with me through hell or high water, always by my side. He knows what I go through on a daily basis, and trust me, it is no pretty tale. (If you haven't figured that out already.)

My freshman year at Nutmeg High School. That was the year everything took a complete 180, rocketed South, shit hitting the fan, any analogy that would describe life flipping on a dime. Oh there it is, flipping on a dime. It was over Christmas break, and we were driving back from visiting some family way up North. The snow was coming dowm pretty heavily, and it was late at night. My mother my driving the car, with my father in the passenger's seat asleep and me in the back on my phone. Neither my mom or I saw the pickup truck speeding down the road during a blizzard, and when it hit us we had no idea what was happening. All I knew was that now our whole car was in the air, and the windshield had shattered in on itself, raining crystals of glass onto the three of us. We landed back on the road, but spun out because of the snow and flew off of the road and into the ditch below, the roof of the car smacking into a tree. Then it all went black.

When I woke up the nurse by my bed told me I had broken my tail and was suffering from a severe concussion. They also informed me that my father was alive but my mother was in the ICU due to extreme injury, the truck had hit her part of the car head on.

Two days after that I was allowed to see my mother, and she wasn't doing too well. I held her paw as she took raspy breaths, each one slightly shallower than the one before. Shallower and shallower, until you could no longer hear them and the only noise was of the monitor flat lining. Doctors had rushed into the room, wheeling a crash cart in tow, but my father raised his paw. My mother had always wished to die when she died, for that moment was etched into stone and furs had no right to be playing God. The doctors looked away in defeat and turned the equipment off. A wave of numbness had overcome my body and the only thing I could do was pull she sheet over her face, silent tears starting to stream from my eyes and down my face.

After that my father had started to hit the bottle, turning to it so he could replace the pain with bliss, and by bliss I mean nothing. But you can only repress sadness for too long, and when exposed to the stressful pressure of grief, like a diamond, transforms into a new much more powerful beast. Anger. Hate. And nothing but me to vent it to. He turned abusive, first verbally and then physically as well, and there was nothing that I could do about it. He even started to tell me how my mother's death was my fault, making up lies to spread to the rest of my family causing them to hate me. By now I've even started to believe them. What if it is really my fault...?

And so here I am. Trapped in the seemingly endless cycle of my life with no end in sight. Might as well get ready for school...