The Cursed Pack: A New Phase

Maggie I had just graduated from high school. Normal, run of the mill public school. I barely graduated, late nights of no sleep, struggling to survive in my mother's house. I'd like to say that home was a safe place with a simply strict parent but that was not the case for me. My Mom, Sharon Masegale is an angry, alcoholic who can find just the right words to make anyone feel like a speck of sticky s**t on the bottom of her shoe. Her words stung more than her hands. Shed invent reasons in her head to be cruel, and I think she believed them honestly. We never had a moment of a good relationship. I spent my upbringing figuratively looking out for the other me that would have the audacity to roll her eyes or talk back to my mother, wondering why it was me succumbing to the repercussions. I turned 18 a week before I graduated. I left my mother's home as soon as the clock struck midnight in the first hour of my Birthday, June 1st. It was a promise I made myself since I turned 10, a kind of fantasy image of me running from the house like Cinderella from the ball at the stroke of midnight. Though most of my childhood dreams were crushed by the time 18 started becoming a reality, that was one dream I held on to. I quietly snuck into her room. She laid out on her bed, a lump of alcohol soaked anger, her thin arm flung over her face, bleach blond hair a mess, her mouth hanging open breathing deeply, somewhere between a snore and a choking sound reverberating off the cheap apartment walls. Her room reeked of hair spray, vanilla perfume and cheap whiskey. Her TV cast a blue light across the room, making me feel incredibly exposed, nothing was playing, just a blue screen with no signal, so not only was her room somewhat well lit, there was no sound other than her breathing, which you would think would indicate a deep sleep, but she could wake on a dime, flying into a rage at any second. I rummaged through her jewelry box for the key to the lockbox under her bed where I knew she kept my social security card. My heart was pounding and I prayed silently that she wouldn't move. I knew that having my social security number wouldn't help me much, she had taken out a handful of credit cards in my name, but at least it would help me get a job and it would give me one instance of feeling in control. I flashed back to the memory of when I had asked her for the number so I could memorize it. It was brought up in school that memorizing our social security numbers would be beneficial so we could apply for loans for college among other things. I swear I could still feel the sting of her hand across my face followed by the searing pain of her cigarette being put out on my shoulder. Her words echoing endlessly in my head, "You don't trust me you little b***h? You don't need that number, you'll never amount to anything anyways." I was of course taken back. I didn't know that she had been using my number to take out loans and to receive any and all benefits she possibly could. I never saw much of said benefits so I didn't know. I reached under the bed feeling for the cold metal box, my fingertips found it and I tensed every muscle I had to avoid leaning on the bed to slowly pull it across the dank carpet. I got it open and thumbed through the paperwork. Luckily, even though the rest of her life was a mess, she kept this little box in order, probably because she used every ounce of her being to get benefits for "taking care of me" and most of the proof of that was in here. Suddenly I felt the bed shift and the room grew deafeningly silent, I stiffened, holding my breath, peeking over the edge of the bed to look at her. Her pale blue eyes bore into me with confusion. She looked like an evil creature, the light from the TV cast shadows on her sallow thin face. I stayed still, begging that she was too drunk to register my shape, an image came into my mind of a group of people standing still while a T-Rex eyed them, "If you don't move, she won't see you" played in my head. It only took a moment for her to come to when she realized what I was doing. Her face contorted and without a word she sat up, her hand swiping in the air for me. She missed. I scrambled to my feet and took off down the hallway, lockbox in hand. I slammed my door and jammed my crappy wooden desk chair under the knob. She was slamming on my door so hard I thought she was going to put a hole through the crap ply wood. I dumped the lockbox out and spread the papers across the floor, quickly finding the unique pattern on both my social security card and my birth certificate. My ears were ringing and all I could hear beyond my heartbeat was garbled profanities and relentless slamming. Relief came over me when I found the papers and my ears cleared. Terror took over, hearing the obscenities and acidic words being thrown at me from my mother while something harder than fists hit the door, her harsh words and the cracking rang out as I slipped out the window and disappeared into the crisp June night. Free. That first night I slept in the park, a cliche I wish I would have avoided, there was a lot more traffic than I was expecting. A few drug deals, some teenagers cutting through on their way to a party. I sat cautiously vigilant from inside a dark tunnel tube that sat on the far corner of the playground. I barely slept, and as soon as the sun rose i got up and started walking to school, humidity clung to the grass as the sun's heat pulled moisture into the air. That last week of school was a blur of my fellow seniors partying in almost every class while I slept. Luckily my sleeping was nothing new to anyone. Even teachers knew not to disturb me, it wasn't worth it. They pitied me. After asking my mother to come to a few teacher parent conferences and her either not showing up or showing up with the stench of beer and an overabundance of vanilla body spray, they started to understand that my sleep problem wasn't a me problem. Especially on the few occasions my Mother decided to take her anger out on me in the hallway or right in front of them. Since then whenever there was an issue or if I didn't get my work done outside of school, they just took it up with me. I knew my education was important, it was a way out, so I spent as much time as I could at the park or hiding in my room pretending I didn't exist quietly working on my school work or re reading textbooks. I think the reason the teachers never filed complaints with CPS was because they knew nothing would be done, and they knew that if a complaint was brought up to my mother that my life would instantly get 10 times worse. I honestly think that my teachers were relieved I was graduating, so they wouldn't have to look at my sad case anymore. The last day of mandatory school I stayed after watching the track team goof off. I snuck into the girls locker room as the last few people were getting picked up by their attentive parents. I made a ritual of it every night of that week. Hide in a stall, hope the closing janitor didn't look too closely before they locked up. I'd get in a shower, wash my clothes in the sink, and get in some fantastic sleep on a nasty wrestling mat. I imagined it was what a prison cell felt like, especially when my mothers cursing reverberated through my nightmares like some disgruntled inmate on a cell block, but when I woke I realized I was only in a cement room and not in the prison that was living with my mother. The friday of graduation came, I was relieved, and instead of walking down the aisle with my cap and gown like the rest of my class, I walked right off of campus, finally free of that last bit of servitude to my youth. I no longer had to deal with stupid teenage drama, no more bullies, no more rushing to clean the house followed by homework done in dark rooms pretending i didn't exist so my Mother might forget for one night that i existed too... I was relieved and terrified as i walked off campus. I didn't know where to go, what to do, while everyone else was getting ready for college, I was getting ready to look for a playground or campsite that I could get through my awkward transitional phase and that's just what I did. I found a park and slept under the stars.