The morning after, Markus jolted me awake on my bed.
He was shaking my shoulders, and I squinted my eyes at him. The fluorescent lamp in my room shining brightly. The smile on his face annoyed me so much that I grabbed a pillow and hit him on the face with it. Groaning, I then slap his arms away from me and turn around, hugging a pillow.
Every 26th of the month, my parents would contact me and ask for money.Being as I’m the only person who had an actual job in that family, they had always reached out to me. Usually, I’ve always had this date remembered because every month, I save my money so that I could give it to the kids. My siblings. I can’t depend on my parents in providing them what they needed.
My palm hits his cheek and I feel tears prick my eyes. Having to live with them was one thing to be embarrassed about. Having Markus know how my parents talked to me was another thing. But the pity he had on his eyes now as he looked at me, a big red palm-shaped welt forming on his face, was an entirely uncommon thing.
I plop myself down on my bed and grab a pillow.Pressing it down on my face, I scream obscenities. Most of the words I’ve learned in my youth from the other druggies that had been in our neighborhood. Once, they told me that if I continue saying words like this, my mother will die. Since then, I made it a habit of saying at least five curse words per day. Obviously, it didn’t work.
I gripped the safety handles of the roof of the car as the surroundings became familiar to me.“Markus,” I whisper softly under my breath, my eyes stuck on the road. “You didn’t.” Like
When I had been young, the house had always looked ugly to me.I spent my youth living next to a trailer park. Our house just a few steps away from the dump. It was inside a gated compound filled with the same horrible white houses with the graying picket fences.
It’s a universal truth that children often placed their parents in such high pedestals.When I had been young, I looked up to both my mother and father. It had only been me, Olive, Scarlett, and the twins, Hazel and Clementine then. I was close to the twins, and I never once understood why Olive and Scarlett would often tell me I shouldn’t spend as much time with my parents as I did back then.
“Have you ever had him checked in the hospital?” The words leave my mouth with much more ferocity than I intended. My parents’ eyes widened, surprised I even had it in me to say such things to them. My mother’s ice turned icy, like how it used to back when I had been younger. She scoffs, crossing her arms against her chest, “Look at this place, you think we could afford a hospital visit when we can’t even pay for no damn elect
Markus wasn’t done. Still, he was gently squeezing my hand from underneath the table. Words don’t form in my mouth. Instead, I was simply looking at him. My heart fluttering against my chest. Beating erratically with every word that comes out of his mouth.