Chapter 1
My name is Chloe, 18 years old. A run away who never dare to look back from my darkest past. I’m a working student and I have my job down town in a cafe near my school. I’m working in the morning and attend school at night. Living alone is not easy, I need to pay for my own expenditures and I need to work to support my daily needs. I’m emotionally unstable honestly. Well I can’t blame myself after I experienced my most heart crashing memories that night.
It was midnight when my Mum went home, drunk and not in her normal state. I closed the door of my bed room and quickly covered my ears with my pillow waiting for her rant. It was my daily life, she will always scold that it was my fault why dad left us and the most painful of all is that she will ended up hurting me. For almost one year, she keeps on doing that to me over and over again.
I don’t even remember how I survive going to school normally getting an average grade. My body was alive but not my soul. It died a long time ago. It slowly died until it can no longer carry the pain. I smiled bitterly after remembering everything.
I can’t count how many times mum slap me in my face, how many times she hit me with different objects. Every time I went home from school. I need to receive her rage for me before entering my room.
But my daily dose of her anger ended after that night. Mum stormed to my bed room. She can freely enter it, the lock was broken and it’s her fault too. She broke it 2 month ago after I didn’t respond from her call downstairs. She forcefully opened my door and viola! The doorknob was broken in a single blink. Then, she harshly grabbed my wrist and I felt like she was almost ripping my arms. I didn’t even manage to get up properly because she slapped me before I regain my balance on my feet. She was not contented. I felt my head on the wall aching, blood dripping in the end of my hair. I don’t remember the pain that she had cause what I remember was her words stabbing my heart slowly until I’m numb.
I was trembling when I heard her footstep waiting for the physical pain. I predicted her next move. She grabbed me again from the small edge of my room but what struck me more was the 45 calibre gun. She was holding from her right hand, smiling at me like a devil.
“Mum?”
My whole body was trembling in fear. It was not a secret to me that mum was intoxicated that night. She was under the influenced of drug. She was taking it so that she can forget her problems but it’s not taking it. It’s destroying our life more.
“It was your fault why your dad left me!”
She said bitterly. Her slightly reddening eyes was wide open, tears streaming down her face. The dark circles around her eyes were extremely big and her thinning figure was intolerable.
“It’s not my fault mum! It was yours!”
I burst out in tears. The gun hit my head and my world was shaking. I tumble to the cold floor but mum pulled my hair and I was standing again. She pointed the gun on my forehead with her trembling hands. I was looking at her intently begging to please stop it but she turned me around. Pushing me on the wall and the gun was still resting in my head.
“Mum... Please... Don’t do this. We can solve your problem. We can survive this...”
I pleaded to her.
“Solve?”
She laughed in tears.
“Solve? What?”
She was mocking me. Her free hand was squishing my left shoulders.
“Mum... It hurts. Please stop it!”
I cried out loud hoping that our neighbour can hear me.
“Shut up!”
She pushed my head on the wall. I closed my eyes feeling the pain again.
“Click.”
I heard the trigger and the bullet ready to pull out but before it can hit my head. I turned around with my right arm landed on mum’s right hand. The bullet fired on the wall of my room. Mum was holding her right arm while kneeling on the floor. I run quickly to the door and another bullet strike the door. I was screaming rushing down stairs, opening the front door. I saw the glimpsed of mum’s shadow in the stairs.
With my trembling body I come out, screaming for help until I reached the road. I saw some familiar faces of my neighbour with mixed emotions while I was running fast. Some was shock, confused and some was asking why. I can’t hear anything. I can’t even see clearly. My vision was blurry and my messy hair was covering my eyes. My white night dress was stained with my own blood. I can even taste it, every time my hair will touch my lips. The blinding light of the approaching car was the last thing I saw before I hit the ground. But before I totally closed my eyes, I hear another shot of the gun not far from where I fall over.
“Mum...”
I whispered before I lost my senses.
I opened my eyes and realized that I was inside the hospital. I’m wearing different clothes now. My whole body was aching and I can see the bruise. Outside I can hear their footstep, busy saving another life. I closed my eyes again and drifted to sleep. I hope I will never wake up again so that I can forget anything.
After my recovery, they brought me in an orphanage. They never say anything about Mum but I heard what happened to her in my last night of staying in the hospital. Mum killed herself. One of our neighbours tried to put the gun away from here but she fight back and in the end she killed herself. I want to grieve on her death but my eyes were left with no tears to fall.
I discovered that mum is not my biological mother. I’m just adopted by her. Mum fooled dad. She said that she was pregnant with his child but she was not really pregnant because she was infertile and it was impossible for her to bear a child. After 9 months of her role play, she adopted me. Mum grabbed the opportunity to give birth while dad was out of town. Most of the days, dad was busy with his business trips that’s why he never figured out that mum was faking him.
Mum was not contented with dad. She was cheating on him because dad was always busy of his work. She tried to hide anything but no secret will be a secret forever. Dad found out that mum was fooling him. He left us but promised to take me back from him when his work was stable. Mum has no idea that I’m receiving a daily allowance from dad and letters too.
She became worst spending our savings not only for drugs but in her man too. I waited for dad to come home but his contract was still not finish. He was force to work abroad because mum spends every earning he had saved. I wonder if dad figured it out too that I’m not his daughter. Maybe he did the reason why he let me to be taken by the orphanage.
I stayed there for 2 years. Some tried to adopt me but in the end, they brought me back to the orphanage again. Until I reached the legal age that I can live on my own. I left the orphanage 3 days after I turned eighteen. I’m home schooled there so I need to adjust when I entered the University. I’m living in a small apartment a few blocks from a convenient store. My work place and school was a little bit far from where I live so I need to ride a bus to go there every day. I’m planning to get a new apartment near my school and work but I think I can do that next semester, I guess.
A/N: Vote and comment. Thank you.
