My Best Friend

Author's Note:

This is a story that I wrote written from the perspective of a young girl.  (Again) I want comments!   

Pain never entirely goes away.  It doesn't go away no matter how much it is covered up by makeup, empty apologies, or hope; it is always going to be there.  You grow up hearing fairy tales from your parents like “a kiss will make it better”, but it never does. 

My parents never taught me these lessons, but I wish that they had.  You deserve to get to know my parents before I try to convince how horrific they each are. First, my mother is a demonic, control-freak that needs to learn that wine does not make anyone feel better.  She works at a small bank as a secretary, but doesn’t work very often.  Her idea of a long week is three days, three hours a day.  Second, my father is a workaholic, over-stressed, middle aged man who grew up with an abusive father.   He used to be a policeman, but then he got arrested (more than once) and was fired.  Now he is a plumber for Bateman and Sons Plumbing.  Together they are just about the worst parents I can imagine.

Each and every person is shaped and formed based off our childhood environments.  We learn what is right and wrong, what to do and not to do, and several other cliché life lessons.  Neither one of my parents learned these lessons, which formed them to be the kind of people that they are today.

My brother and I have been abused and taken advantage of ever since I can remember.  The two of us are each other’s best friends, for mother would not allow for any other friends, and each have a solitary, brick room in the basement of our . . . house?   We wake up each day to a chore list six pages long and each more idiotic then the last.  Some of my chores for today are as follows:

1.)    Clean bar counters

2.)    Shine tools in shed

3.)    Iron mothers’ clothes

4.)    Wash and dry the dishes

5.)    Be ready to have lunch and dinner prepared

6.)    Windex all 4 bathrooms mirrors

7.)    Pick up all clothes in parents’ rooms

8.)    Wash, sort, and put way all laundry

Neither my brother nor I are allowed to watch the television, listen to the radio, or go onto the computer.  We are only allowed to go to school twice a week and are never permitted to go to the nurse.  Each of us goes to school on different days and we are not allowed to participate in any extracurricular activities. 

Our regular afternoon activates are anything but cheerful.  The two of us get beaten and slapped repeatedly until we have completed our chores.  As of right now, I am covered in bruises, scars, and wounds, yet no one cares enough about me to ask about them.  While this might sound a bit odd, I have grown to understand my scars.  The cuts and marks are a part of me that I will never totally erase, even as I grow up.  These marks will be here when mother dies, when father dies, and still when I die.  Even though they do not define who I am, they make me what I am; same with my brother.

My brother forgot to complete one of his chores yesterday and father beat him so hard that I thought he was going to kill him!  Today my brother, whose name is Aaron (by the way), can barely walk or talk at all.  I cried harder than I ever had before, once I saw what father had done to him.  He got his black belt, The Snake, and lashed Aaron all over his body.  After I saw this, I had a sudden burst of courage and marched up the stairs and began to yell at father.  Then, he beat me as hard, if not harder, as Aaron. 

I crawled my way down to our bedroom and shut the door.  The two of us sat on our cold cement floor together as best friends.  There was too much blood on our floor to be expected to get cleaned up, so we just stayed where we were.  I could feel the life draining out of my body like water in a strainer, slow and purified.  Father came downstairs with The Snake, but before he could, I saw Aaron do something I had never seen him do in my entire life, he allowed for a single tear to flow down his cheek.  He was crying.  I now understood that it was going to be over him and he knew it too.  So he picked up all of his pride, courage, and strength and punched father right between the eyes. 

Within the same second father hit the floor, Aaron and I did too.  In one single second, I died right next to my best friend.