Before I left my home in Pennsylvania, I never thought my life would turn out as badly as it did, I’m not even sure if I knew people could feel such disdain about their own lives. 

It couldn’t have been any earlier than 8 at night, her mascara streaming down her tear-stained cheeks in my dimly lit bedroom, my only safe space to get away from that god-forsaken house. She asked for my advice, having no idea what to do with the monster she let into our home. He broke her nearly every night, and in the mornings when he slept, she’d have to pick herself back up and glue the pieces back together.

Back then, I resented her. I couldn’t understand how she could love someone who hurt her so badly that she had to run to her 15-year-old son for help, how she could repeatedly let that man stay in our house and make the place where I was supposed to feel safe a living nightmare. I hated her weakness for him, making me take on the responsibilities of a 24-year-old at fifteen with school in the morning, and how when I’d get up at 6:30, I’d have to wait to use the bathroom while she covered up her bruises with the dollar store foundation. 

And most of all, I hated how I couldn’t hate her.  I watched her weep while I told her calmly what to do, that she needed to get away from him before he took her life, literally and metaphorically. She’d nod and promise that he would be gone in the morning, just for him to come back and do it again, and again, and again. The broken promises were acting as an unstable bridge between mother and son, and whenever I tried to cross it and help her, I would always fall through and get hurt. I remember her pulling me close that night, how uncomfortable I felt in her embrace because of my resentment and how I couldn't hold her back.

“Thank you for being my mother,” she whispered to me in her weakened, cracked voice as if that was the last bit of strength she had. 

Throughout my years being in Texas, I’d learned to put my needs second, to avoid complaining because I knew it wouldn’t help if both of us were struggling. It wouldn’t help if both of us needed help and there was no one there to pull the other up. Despite how hard I was holding back my tears for the duration of the conversation and the scowls and indifference I’d show her for weakness, I couldn’t hide them any longer. I hated seeming weak, as if I couldn’t help myself and showing any tears or defiance would just prove I was still just a kid, even though I am, and even though that’s what I am supposed to be. Seeing my mother cry to me and hold me made me sick, my emotions would well up in my stomach and bubble in my skin, making it crawl where I couldn’t even stand to look at her. It was as if she were looking at me like a distorted mirror of who her mother couldn’t be for her, and the mother she wanted herself to be. I hated that I had to show up for her because her mother couldn’t and she couldn’t for me.