I can’t breathe.

What did I do to deserve this? I exist. Right, of course.

There’s that.

The car is getting smaller. Seriously, at this second I can’t believe my mother’s P.T. Cruiser actually seats five people. I’m in a clown car about to cry and suffocate at the same time. And throw up.

I believe the correct phrase for the state I was currently falling into was “anxiety attack.”

I’m freaking. I could practically hear the word ‘change’ being whispered in my ear.

That definitely made me shudder.

“Stop. Your pills are in my purse. Do not forget them, God forbid your grandmother actually has to take you to the pharmacy and buy you panic pills.” My mother says.

She can’t even say anxiety pills. She has to say panic pills and ignore the fact that it bothers me that she says the word panic when I’m actually panicking because this only heightens my anxiety.

Even though technically right now, I’m panicking.

I waste no time and reach into her brown, knock off Louis Vitton on top of the middle council for the familiar orange bottle. My fingers tremble as I fussed with the cap, which only further served to agitate my tired and hung-over mother.

“Give it to me!” She grabbed the bottle from my shaking hands and hastily unscrewed the lid, and tipped the bottle aggressively, leaving two beautiful, white, oval shaped relievers in my hand.

I shoved them in my mouth and closed my eyes, things were beginning to get dizzy.

I felt them slide down my throat dry, and invite relief into my system. I routinely inhaled through my nose, and exhaled through my mouth.

I can’t think about this now, I have hours to think about it on the plane.

The plane. Oh God.

I started to think about adjectives. When I was in the sixth grade and I had my first anxiety attack, my teacher, Mrs. Solinsky, told me that I was an excellent writer and that I was very descriptive, so she told me to describe an orange in ten adjectives. I realize now, being in the twelfth grade, that she was panicking herself, and didn’t want to look like an inattentive teacher whose student was having an anxiety attack in the teacher lobby.

But it works. It still does.

Sweet, Tart, smooth, round, moist, bumpy, orange, firm, tasty, healthy.

Deep breath.

My chest slowly is rising and falling. Slowly is good, I told myself. This is passing.

If only a few pills could take the last few days away.

“You know what the Lord says about panic attacks Pierce? He says ‘this too shall pass’. So calm down. Jesus, Christ.” My mother says, interrupting the three-minute silence. I know she won’t recognize the sheer irony in that last uneducated piece of advice she just spat at me.

I open my eyes to make her happy, only to find my vision blurry. My breathing was returning back to normal now, however.

I decide to concentrate on looking at my mother, since she was sitting so very still. Her bronze, long fingers were gently massaging her pulsing temples, she shutting her eyes tightly, trying to find an instant remedy for her morning after headache.

I know I shouldn’t have condoned her going out last night, but I had so much packing to do and goodbyes to do, I couldn’t make time for our routine fight. She’s wearing what she left the house in last night. Frankly, she looked ridiculous. Her face was slowly wrinkling in the outer edges of her eyes and mouth, her lipstick was screaming pink and too Barbie like. Her top was nearly the same shade of pale pinkish lavender, only it was tight and midriff baring. Her long jet black-dyed hair was tangled, over-teased and way too dry.

She was always a mess.

A mess. We definitely looked alike then.

Trying not to think about myself while I was idly staring at her, the sad conclusion hit me in the face. My mother was a mess, just as she always had been. A mess.

A mess I would never get to clean up again.

This brought tears to my eyes. She hated weakness and would never comfort me, so I fought them for a few moments as I stared at my mother, my beautiful and hopeless mess whom I’d never be able to cook dinner for again, or call and cancel work for, or paint nails with or hear stories of men she’s dumped and duped. Had I been thinking this any other day, I would feel somewhat resentful towards her for being this way, for never being able to take care of me or herself for that matter.

But this was the end.

I was moving out, not dying, and I know I should never say never, but this was it.

This was the end. I knew it in my heart and in every fiber of my being. I’d crossed a line- a stupid, selfish line that I had to pay for now.

“Are you done now?” She says in a dull tone, clearly not anticipating my drop off at the airport to take so long.

I wasn’t going to just sit here and take this in. I wasn’t going to mull over whether to call her and ask her about this later. No. I’m leaving her with a nice, big, heap of conviction.

“Is this it mom? Is this the last time I’m seeing you? Hung over and annoyed that I’m not out of the car yet? You don’t even care that I’m leaving.” I struggled to compose myself as I formed that sentence. I felt like a brat saying that, like one of those over dramatic teens who yelled in their over protective parents faces for not letting them borrow the car, claiming they hated them, when really it was all just to protect them. The truth of the matter is my mother really could care less if I went out every night. She wouldn’t mind if borrowed the car for more than grocery shopping or sneak out at odd hours of the night to scratch that partying itch I’ve just been freaking over. Maybe that’s why she didn’t care, because she knew I’d never do that or be that way.

Be like her.

I could see myself in the future dealing with her sending me off like this, but I could never accept it if I knew she didn’t miss me because I was nothing more to her than a mouth to feed or someone to hold her hair up while she was puking.

“Don’t cry. People will never respect you if you show them your weaknesses. Crying is for fools and nobodies.” She said hoarsely. I started to feel a sense of sadness radiating from her voice, which made me feel better. I knew she wouldn’t cry in front of me. This would make her a hypocrite, and the one thing her and I bonded with over the years was our hatred of hypocrites.

Together, we were strong. To her, this made us better than anybody else.

Until a few days ago that is. I ruined everything.

When I felt like I could grasp hold of my emotions enough to look her in the eye with a somewhat brave expression, I felt angry.

I felt angry that she wasn’t being a normal mom who told me I would love it there or could take over the world if I wanted to, who was crying and holding me and telling me to call the second I got there. I truly believe my mother could care less if she got an email in the next month about how I was situating. “You’re my daughter, Pierce. You’re resilient; you know how to start over. This will be good for you. I’m not the best influence anywhere.”

I’d always excepted that this was the life I was given, and the mother who gave birth to me, and who I was, but at this moment I wish I was someone else. Someone who wasn’t moving to California because their mother was incompetent to take care of her. I know my own mother enough to believe she would never tell me the straight up reason she was shipping me off to my grandmothers. I knew hidden inside me the truth- that she was textbook incompetent of taking care of me.

So what.

I discovered this when I was eleven and from that day forward I learned how to cook and clean and teach myself to do my own homework. I’m seventeen now, what changes things? Just because college opportunities were better than in Wisconsin…

I could have gotten away with it, until a few nights ago of course.

I can’t go there. We’ve been arguing about this for months.

Of course I broke the final straw on the freaking camel’s back, but this would have happened anyway.

The end result is me moving to Southern California and going to some preppy private school, funded by my absentee father and to live with my grandmother who’s been married four times.

My flight was so soon, and I still had to check in, but I needed a few answers before I boarded that plane.

“When will I see you?” I asked, positively glassy-eyed.

“I don’t know. Probably Thanksgiving. But what does it matter? You’re strong Pierce. I raised you to be strong and you’ve shown me on more than one occasion you’re strong. This is the real world babe. I’m just letting you get pushed you in it. California has way better things to offer you than here. You’re rich daddy is paying for your fancy school; grandma is going to cook and clean for you and give you a nice place to stay,-“

I scowled at her. I’d rather take care of myself. I was type one independent, and would prefer to be that way. Never changing. She kept talking, despite my physical nonchalance about what she was saying. She saw right past it.

“You need this. You need to get out of Wisconsin. God forbid you turn out like me.” Her hands motioned to her body and her face. As if to validate this, just as abruptly as she released that statement she lit a cigarette and eagerly inhaled a long drag, releasing the smoke in the air moments later. She looked at me and smiled sarcastically.

“You’ll be around better influences. Your school is a Jesus school, so you’ll be around good kids. This is something that was never offered to me when I was younger Pierce, and maybe if my guilt got to me, I wouldn’t have turned out this way.” She ended sadly. It was no secret in our family that my mother was- still is- the rebel. She never finished high school, was pregnant at nineteen and never stopped to get her life together. It didn’t matter who she was- even if that was who she still was- I wouldn’t let her downplay herself like that.

“Mo-,” I raised my voice to protest. I was not going to leave her depressed like this. I needed to fix her before I left.

“No! I’m sick of you taking care of me. You need to live your life! You need to discover who you are and make stupid decisions and date boys and be alive. You need a solid education and this school is a ticket to college practically. You’re going to be fabulous, everything I wanted to be. Besides, I’m sure they can fix you there.”

I’d had enough. She was hungover, not drunk. She never opened up to me like this. I all about but lost it.

Fix me? Like I was some porcelain doll that you could send away for a few weeks and return all new and shiny?

I didn’t need to be fixed. She had it all wrong. I wasn’t the one who needed fixing.

Sure, I’d made stupidly huge mistakes in the last few days, but i get it. I knew I was wrong. Even while I did what I was doing, I knew it. I was fixed.

Lost maybe, but fixed.

I learned my lesson. I was about to go live up to the repercussions.

“Mom, promise me something?” I said, struggling to compose myself. She seemed tuned out entirely, as if I wasn’t in the car and she’d already dropped me off.“ No matter what- take care of yourself. Think before you do things mom! If not for you, then do it for me.”I asked, my voice entirely and purposefully pleading. “Please.” I added for emphasis.

“Of course baby. I wouldn’t hurt you. Now go. I’ll call you tomorrow to see how everything settled.” She said distantly. Something about her tone spread a sense of unsettling in my veins.

“Ok.” I started to grab my rolling suitcase and carry on. “I love you mom.” I said with all my heart.

“You know I love you baby. Be strong. Don’t let anyone bring you down. You are above them.” She said quickly, obviously in a hurry to make me leave the car. I do believe she was beginning to get emotional.

“See you soon.” I said mostly for myself. I didn’t even believe my own voice.

She threw me a smile, that classic smile she threw the landlord when we didn’t pay our rent, or her boyfriend when she declared she had no feelings for him, or to me, when she convinced me she wouldn’t drive drunk.

She threw me that smile and it hurt.

Everything was going to be okay. Except for the whole me starting an entire new life thing.

Moving was supposed to be good. It was supposed to be a time for a new beginning, where you could become this entirely new person and start over and be that new girl who everybody likes and doesn’t feel like she’s the new girl because she fits in so well and everybody loves her.

Who am I fooling anyway?

I don’t believe in ‘new’. I don’t believe in change, I don’t believe in surprises and I certainly don’t believe in being fixed.

I was fine. I was strong. I was Pierce.

Thinking this as I boarded the plane, I was abruptly given a reality check I didn’t ask for.

Was.

I was fine. I was strong.

I was Pierce.

Apparently, swallowing a handful of pills didn’t end Pierce. Didn’t end who I was. I only knew one thing for certain: I wasn’t that girl anymore.

I didn’t need to be fixed, because I would never be her again.

Which left the hanging, question:

Who the hell am I?