Trapped

4. "You Bastard"

⚠️TW⚠️ drug and alcohol abuse & verbal abuse

We sat inside where the curtains were closed so I could eat without wearing the blindfold. The light isn't so bad anymore but I'm still getting used to it. The waitress came over with menus, it was all comfort food and diner food. I ordered some macaroni and cheese with a milkshake and Cam got a burger, curly fries, and a Coke. We talked for a while about all the different things I'm going to be doing over the next six months and what I need to prepare myself for. I asked questions like I had nothing else to do and he answered them to the best of his ability. And then our food came. We were almost done eating when a picture frame fell from the wall. The frame shattered on the floor, it was so familiar. I sat there staring at it trying to remember why.

C: "Audrey? You good?"

A: "Mhmhm, I just-" I stopped. I walked to the frame, I wasn't even fully aware that I had even gotten up. I knelt down and picked up the picture that was in the frame and suddenly I was in a house. My house. Well, my old house. The one I used to live in with my mom. It reeks of cigarette smoke and alcohol.

I looked up at her, she was standing next to the bookshelf the picture was on. Every time she'd pass it she put her finger on the picture of her and my dad's wedding photo pointing at his scribbled out face. "You bastard" she'd say. It was routine. But that day was different. She had been drinking more than usual that day. She picked up the picture and threw it on the floor. She was yelling and blaming me for his death.

"Bastard man and his bastard child! They never would have found out if we didn't go and have your dumbass!" she yelled, her words slurring together. She began pouring out the bottle of alcohol onto the picture. She took her cigarette and dropped it on the floor making the wooden frame and the carpet catch fire.

"I'm letting go of my past and everything connected to your father. And you could go up in flames with the stupid house for all I care." she calmly says said as if it was no biggie.

I watched her walk out of the house before quickly grabbing the photo of my parents and running to the kitchen. I grabbed the house phone off the counter and dialed 911 like I was taught to do a few months prior at the third grade field trip to the fire station.

I rushed back to the living room but it was already up in flames. We live in a small town so the fire station must have called my best friend's mom, who has been more of a mother to me than my own mother ever could or made and effort to be. The window next to me shattered and she pulled me through and helped me out of the out to the front yard. Just then the firefighters arrived. I watched as my house, the only home I've ever known, go up in flames.

I felt my best friend's mom pulled me into a hug. "Come on Audrey, you're going to come stay with me for a little while. Let's go home." I don't think I stopped crying until I fell asleep.

I opened my eyes to look back up at her I was back in the diner. But instead it was Cam who was sitting with me on the floor while I was shaking in his arms, tears streaming down my face. It was just a flashback?

C: "It's okay Audrey, it wasn't real. I've got you" there it is, there's that line again.