All I remember is waking up to the sound of a beep…it was so annoying! Why wasn’t anyone stopping it? BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Ok now it was getting on my nerves. I would have stopped it myself, but it seemed as if I was in a pool of water…the pressure pushing on my lungs…every jagged breath was a miracle, ever breath I didn’t think I could push myself further; but then I heard him. This is a story of how love turned into a painful, yet unavoidable experience that almost ended in death.



I lay there with my eyes closed, the most beautiful sense of peace setting on me…slowly I opened my eyes, as they adjusted to the light I noticed certain things…the dust motes dancing to the tune of the breeze, my book left open and unfinished on the nightstand, and last but not least…the time.

The clock confused me…9:30 it read. I was trying to remember why the time troubled me…tick tock tick tock…CLICK! Oh my goodness I was going to be late for school! Now I know you usually never hear that one from a fifteen year old girl, but school was my escape…my…my home. I love school…actually I love anything that will get me out of the house.
You see I don’t exactly have the great life that everyone thinks I have. My mom is never home, and my dad left us when I was seven, saying as he left “Jackie, you need to learn to take more responsibilities…I can’t keep shelling out money to you if your just going to waste it!” Jackie is my mother. She would take my fathers money and buy things that I didn’t understand until now. Drugs. But I see her as often as I see a puppy on Christmas.
Anyway, I jumped out of bed just in time to rip the brush through my hair and realize…I had Spanish yesterday, a Friday class. I slowly made my way back to my bed to lie comfortably back in the center. Drat! Another week gone by in a blur! Slowly I drifted into a deep sleep.
Everything was a blur…what was waiting ahead? Well the only way to find out would be to follow the path. I walked and walked and walked…finally I reached my destination…It was a woman, she had long black hair, and her back was turned toward me, I reached out…the woman turned around. My eyes became glassy and big as a globe. The woman was my mother, as I stared she said, “what do you think your looking at? GO TO YOUR ROOM!”
My eyes flew open at the flashback that I had been trying so hard to keep out of my mind…my mother. That was the first thing she said to me on my fifth birthday. But that was one of the best birthdays ever, she was actually home, and she actually said something to me. Yet I still cringed at the memory.